


Known

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27456568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: When Duke sees through her Lexi disguise so easily she's unable to resist letting him know how she feels about him, surprised to find that he feels the same.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Audrey was just waking up. She remembered being Lexi. The bar. The void. Making the jump. And now she was Audrey again. At least she thought so. Her memories were still so jumbled up. Nathan. He was here. She remembered Nathan. As Audrey. That meant that Audrey was the real her. “Hi,” she managed to say as he brushed her hair back, hand resting on her cheek. She looked around as she tried to settle the correct memories into the correct places, and the next person she noticed was Duke. Of course, Duke was here too. Then she noticed the guns. A lot of them. Surrounding them. She had no idea what they were doing there. What kind of mess they were in the middle of, and she was still trying to figure it out when Nathan got up, walked over to Jordan, and took the gun from her. She was as confused as ever, but once he came back and pressed it into her hand and pointed it at his chest, she started to get an idea of what was going on. “What are you doing?” she asked carefully, trying to figure out how to play this. 

“The troubles haven’t ended,” Nathan told her. “I know what Howard told you. Killing me is the only way now.” 

Audrey saw Nathan look over to Duke and the look clearly meant that they’d already had this argument and then Nathan was kissing her. She let the gun fall as she kissed him back hesitantly. Nathan just grabbed the gun and put it back to his chest as he begged her to kill him and she knew how she had to play this. “I’m not killing anyone. Certainly not someone I’ve never met before.” She wondered if Nathan would be able to tell. To see it in her eyes. It had to be there as clear as day. She doubted if any of the gunmen would notice. They didn’t know her that well. Nathan should notice though. “And who is Audrey?” she added the icing on the cake. “My name is Lexi.” She would have to be Lexi for now. At least until they found another way. 

“Your name is Lexi?!” Nathan asked incredulously. 

He didn’t see it. She shouldn’t have been surprised. It just confirmed what she had long suspected. “Uh, I guess you guys were expecting someone else?” she said as she glanced around, being very careful not to meet Duke’s eyes. Duke would definitely see through her. Hopefully by the time they next saw each other she would be steady enough to keep Audrey deep enough beneath the surface to fool even him. 

Jordan came up and pointed her gun right at Nathan. “Shoot him,” she ordered. 

“I’m not shooting anyone…who are you people?” she asked, making sure to sound confused. 

“Jordan, if she’s not Audrey anymore then her killing Nathan isn’t going to end the troubles,” Duke jumped in, unable to do more than glance at the fake Audrey. Partially because he couldn’t stand looking at her and seeing someone else in her eyes, but mostly just to keep an eye on the gun. “It only works if she loves him.”

Audrey forced herself not to respond to that. Not to point out that it wouldn’t be Nathan she would need to kill if that was the case. Thankfully she didn’t get long to dwell on it before all hell broke loose and Duke saved the day again. Just like he always did. He jerked the gun away from Jordan and threw a punch that got the troubled blood on him. As his eyes started to glow, he turned back long enough to yell for Nathan to run. As much as part of her wanted to grab a gun and help Duke, she knew that she couldn’t. It would give her away in a heartbeat. Instead she contented herself with moving to the side, trying to ignore the supercharged Duke throwing people around and giving a distraction for Nathan to get away, and decided to try and figure out who the new girl was. She didn’t seem to be on the side of the guard. 

When Audrey heard that commotion that meant that they’d caught Nathan she couldn’t stand back anymore, she ran off after them, Jennifer right behind her, grabbing a gun off the ground. She would just have to do what she could to keep her identity under wraps anyway. When Duke failed to talk them down and they were about to shoot Nathan, she fired a shot into the air. “Hey, listen up you lunatics. Move a muscle, lose your heads.” When she noticed a few suspicious looks, particularly from Duke, she started waving the gun around in a way Audrey never would. “I know it doesn’t seem like I know how to use this thing, but I do.” 

“What do you want, Lexi?” Vince asked. 

“Ideally? A stiff drink. And a reason why y’all are trying to blow away cheekbones here,” she said, trying to put as much Lexi into her mannerisms as possible. She could see that Duke wasn’t completely convinced though. At least he wouldn’t give her up in front of anyone else. When Jordan tried to step forward, Audrey fired a shot at her feet. “I know you’re angry honey, but I’m hoping you’re not stupid too. 

Duke knew that someone had to defuse this, so he spoke up. “Scuse me, Lexi? Hi. My name’s Duke,” he said. He wasn’t sure if it was Audrey pretending to be Lexi or not. Maybe the similarities were always there, no matter the personality that she was overwritten with. Like how all of her personalities came to help with the troubles. It didn’t matter at this point though. Even if he was sure that it was Audrey, he would still have to pretend to believe her in front of the guard anyway. “I would actually prefer that they didn’t shoot cheekbones here either,” he explained. “Now uh…I think I can clear this whole thing up if I can just…talk to this gentleman right over here. The uh…the big one.” 

Audrey pretended to think about it for a second, not willing to give anyone a clue by immediately trusting Duke before nodding and waving her gun for him to go ahead with a quiet, “okay.” Audrey couldn’t hear what was said, but apparently whatever Duke said worked. At least partly, because they were hustled back to town and she and Nathan were locked up while a heated argument raged outside. She made sure to play up the Lexi persona more than usual, especially once she realized that Nathan didn’t even have any suspicions. It also kept her mind off wondering what was going on out there. What Duke’s plan was and whether or not it was going to work. She wasn’t sure if the three of them would be able to fight their way out if it didn’t. Then again, the three of them had beaten worse odds. Unfortunately, Vince didn’t give her any clues as they were dragged out. Seeing Duke where they went was heartening, but it really irritated her when she was left behind at the car and she couldn’t hear what Nathan, Duke, and Vince were talking about. 

Duke walked up to Nathan and Vince as Nathan was handed a gun. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on,” Nathan said irritated. 

“Duke has a plan,” Vince said cryptically, looking at Duke and clearly intending for him to explain. 

“Well, it’s really pretty simple. If Audrey loves you when she kills you, the troubles end right? Same rules should apply if Lexi falls for you,” Duke said, looking at the ground. He hated this with every fiber of his being. He wished that he could do this in Nathan’s place. He would do almost anything to save his friend, and knowing that Audrey…or Lexi…loved him…he could die happy then. It wouldn’t work though. That had been clear in Colorado. 

“You want Lexi to fall in love with me,” Nathan asked incredulously. 

“Spend some time with her. Get to know her,” Vince said. “She can help you with this trouble.”

“She’s not even a cop anymore. She’s a bartender,” Nathan pointed out. 

“Whatever personality she has, she’s always helped with the troubles. It’s who she is,” Vince explained before turning to Duke. “You make sure this happens. If it doesn’t, the guard won’t just be here for Nathan.”

Duke barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he muttered, “good pep talk.” It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d put his head on the chopping block for his friends and it probably wouldn’t be the last. 

“This is your plan,” Nathan scoffed. 

“No,” Duke snapped. “This is /your/ plan remember? Just…different girl this time.” It wasn’t like there was another choice. Dead now or dead later were Nathan’s choices and only one way had a chance to not be in vain. 

“I’m in love with Audrey,” Nathan said pointedly, looking back at the car, intending to try and point out the difference, only to find her gone. Nathan and Duke both took off towards her when they heard her scream. 

Part of Audrey was galled to have to scream like that, but she made sure that her Lexi identity was at the forefront. That was also where the impatience to get this show on the road came from that had her wandering in here in the first place. Audrey was a lot more cautious and patient. She wasn’t at all surprised to find both Nathan and Duke racing in. Unfortunately, they didn’t save the kid, but even if she wasn’t pretending to be Lexi, she knew that there was nothing she could have done. Their best bet was to figure out this trouble. 

Audrey sat on the couch, playing with her hair and pretending to be bored as the girl was interviewed. She was surprised that Duke was the one asking all the questions. Nathan was clearly distracted. Even she was caught off guard when Nathan called in someone else to take her statement as soon as Duke asked him to take over the questioning. Clearly something was bothering Nathan big time, but she couldn’t exactly ask. As the case progressed, she did the best she could to help without breaking character. Thankfully, she knew that all of her personalities had a knack for helping with the troubles so she didn’t have to worry too much about having to make a choice that might have people die. 

When the time came to end it, knowing that Duke’s life was at risk, nothing would have kept her out of that building, and if it came to it, blowing her cover in front of Duke wouldn’t be the end of the world. Duke wouldn’t out her. Normally she would trust Nathan just as much, but Nathan was so intent on her killing him, that he would try to force the matter. Duke was safe enough and if it was expose herself or let him die, well…letting Duke die would never be an option. At least she was able to keep anyone else from coming with her. Ideally, she could just get the drink ticket out of his hand and then talk the kid down from his trouble so no one needed to die, but it didn’t work out that way. 

Audrey cursed herself when her gun got knocked out of her hand. It drastically cut down her choices when Tyler came out, still in Duke’s body. She swallowed heavily as the axe went to her throat and Tyler asked, “How well do you know this guy? Is he really worth dying for?” 

He absolutely was, and if that was the choice, Audrey would have done it in a heartbeat, but when the axe was raised, she knew what she had to do. There was only one way left to play this. “I’m sorry, Duke,” she said, stepping out of the way. She knew that he would assume that it was for giving up and letting the kid have his body, but really it was because she was letting him kill someone. Letting him take on another trouble that he didn’t ask for. She knew how he felt about his curse. How much it tore him apart to use it. 

When Duke’s eyes started glowing and he started convulsing, Audrey desperately hoped that she’d done the right thing. That she hadn’t just killed Duke anyway. That it would work like she thought it would. When he collapsed, she moved around, “Tyler?” she asked, trying to keep the dread out of her voice, but as soon as Duke looked up at her, she knew that it was him. 

“Relax sweetheart. It’s me,” Duke said. 

“Do you…remember anything?” Audrey asked. 

“All of it,” Duke said hauntedly. “Felt like I was a fly on my own wall the whole time.”

“What just happened?” she asked. “And what was going on with your eyes?” 

“My family curse,” Duke admitted. Normally he would have tried harder to keep it under wraps, but he wasn’t so sure that she didn’t already know, and even if she didn’t, it was still Audrey whether she remembered or not. “When I kill a troubled person, I kill their trouble too. When he died, Tyler couldn’t control me anymore. He accidentally ended his own curse.”

“Alright…well that’s good to know,” Audrey replied, glad that it was one more thing she wouldn’t have to pretend ignorance about. “I’ve got a lot to learn here.”

“Yeah,” Duke said, glancing over at the dead body suspiciously. “That was a close one.” He headed out after that. He had some things to think about. 

Audrey went back to the station with Nathan and took some time to go through the stuff on her desk. She tried to feel Nathan out on the whole situation between them, but clearly she wasn’t getting any more of an answer than that it was complicated. It bothered her that he couldn’t see through the act though. He was supposed to know her. She would have seen through him if their positions were reversed, especially as closely as they’d had to work together all day. When she went back to the gull, she wasn’t in the best of moods. She knew that she couldn’t just go back up to her apartment like nothing happened though. “So, I used to live /here/?” she pointed up from the deck as Duke came out the door. “What was I? Broke? I mean…it’s nice and everything. It’s a little nautical.” 

“Well I’m glad you like it,” Duke said, trying to decide if he was going to confront her or not. Once he decided, he smirked. “You owe me six months rent,” he joked. 

Audrey laughed. That was so Duke. “I just tried to save your life. Shouldn’t I get the first month free?” 

“You know, I’ve been thinking about what happened down in that basement,” Duke said, realizing that she had no intention of coming clean even though they were actually alone now. “You just stepped aside and let Tyler try to take me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I just…I…I didn’t want to get stabbed. I was scared,” she lied, looking down at the floor and shifting nervously. 

When she tried to walk away, Duke moved in front of her. “See, that’s where I get stuck,” he said, meeting her eyes for the first time and seeing Audrey there. “You jumped out of that barn. Went down in that basement. I guess I’m just having a hard time believing that you were scared.” He paused to give her a chance to say something but when she didn’t, he decided that he would have to be blunt. “I think you knew that my curse would kick in and save me.”

Audrey knew that she was probably caught, but she couldn’t just give up that easily. “I really wouldn’t know the first thing about it,” she said as she brushed by him to walk away, twirling her hair. 

“But Audrey Parker would,” Duke called after her, seeing her steps falter like she was trying to make a decision. “Isn’t that right…Audrey.” 

Audrey froze for a long moment, torn between admitting the truth and keeping up the act. She knew that it was a lost cause though. Duke always could see right through her. “Damnit Duke,” she breathed out before spinning around and all but jumping into his arms. She couldn’t stop herself from kissing him. She knew she should have, but she just couldn’t help it. Not after everything. 

Duke wrapped and arm around her waist, one hand going to her cheek and neck as he kissed her back, losing himself in it for a moment before he pulled back, looking at her confusedly. “Audrey…” he trailed off, not really sure what he was going to say or ask. 

“I’m sorry,” Audrey sighed dejectedly. “I know I shouldn’t have…I know you don’t…I just…” 

Duke got even more confused and he knew that whatever was going on he couldn’t just leave it like this. “Okay, first things first, whatever is going on here, if you don’t want your secret out we can’t have this conversation out in the open.” He knew that Jennifer had finished getting her stuff out of the apartment and it was currently on his boat until she decided whether or not she was leaving, so he gestured upstairs. 

“Yeah. That’s probably smart,” Audrey nodded, letting Duke lead the way up. 

Once they were inside the apartment, Duke leaned against the counter. “Okay, first of all, just to make sure we’re all caught up…you’re Audrey.”

“Yeah, Duke. It’s me,” she admitted. 

“Okay. Good. Glad I’m not crazy at least,” he chuckled. “Now how about you try finishing at least one of those sentences you started down there.” 

“Um…” Audrey shifted uncomfortably. 

“Okay, try this. I’ll start. You shouldn’t have…” he waved a hand for her to finish. 

“Kissed you,” she finished. At least that was the easy one. 

“You know I don’t…” he gave the same motion. 

This one took a bit longer before she managed to finish it. “Think of me that way.” 

Duke sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair, pushing off the counter and going through the motions of starting coffee so he didn’t have to look at her. “It’s not that I don’t think of you that way, Audrey. It’s just…”

When he trailed off Audrey couldn’t help but snort. “Just what?” He had some nerve talking to her about finishing sentences. 

“Nathan,” Duke said simply. 

“What about him?” Audrey asked. She knew that Nathan had been trying to keep Duke away from her for a while after the whole Crocker family curse thing, but she thought they’d gotten past that. 

“You and Nathan,” he said more clearly. 

“What about me and Nathan?” She didn’t think it was so clear. 

“You love each other,” Duke said as he finished measuring out the grounds, moving as slow as he could manage. 

“No. We don’t,” Audrey said seriously. 

Duke turned to look at her again impatiently. The more they talked the more confused he got and he was starting to get frustrated. “I know for a fact that he loves you. And the way you kissed him before you went in the barn…and the way you were always running straight to him before that…”

“Okay first, he doesn’t love me. He might think he does, but he’s just obsessed with the fact that he can feel me and it’s messing with his head. I mean…you guys were in nineteen fifty five for what? A day? Two at the most? And he ended up sleeping with Sarah and getting her pregnant. And while she might look like me, she was very much /not/ me.” She knew now that she could remember both Lexi and Audrey that each of her incarnations were very different people and their only similarity was helping with the troubles. 

“She was /kinda/ you,” Duke pointed out.

“How much time did you spend with her?” she asked him. 

“Not much. I think I had half a conversation when I was trying to stop my grandfather from killing her, and then later when she helped Stuart send us back, I stayed outside and let Nathan do the talking, so…”

“Well I may not remember much about Sarah. Or Lucy. But I know that Sarah was an army nurse. I could never imagine being a nurse. I could never be able to handle it. I currently have the life and memories of two people and I can tell you that Lexi is not a lot like Audrey either. The looks are the only thing we share. And the ability for Nathan to feel us.” 

“Okay. I get that. I guess it makes sense,” Duke admitted. He hadn’t really thought that Sarah was that much like Audrey either from the little he saw. He just figured that Nathan had spent more time with her and knew more than he would. “But you…”

“I kissed him like that before I went in the barn because I was planning to never see him again. I knew how he thought he felt about me and I wanted to give him that to hold onto when I was gone. As far as running straight to him, I’m not sure what you mean there, but he was my partner and my friend. Of course I leaned on him and even worried about him,” Audrey wanted to get all of the misunderstandings out in the open. 

“Is that why you’re pretending to be Lexi? So that you don’t have to tell him that you don’t love him as much as he thinks you do?” Duke asked. He knew he didn’t have any room to judge. He’d done some crazy stuff to avoid those sorts of situations himself. 

“No. I mean, yeah. That’s part of it. But only because if it comes out that killing him won’t work, they’ll start looking for who I really need to kill and I refuse to do it,” she said firmly. “It really would have made things easier on me if none of you ever found out the other way to end it.”

“You would sacrifice the entire town for one person?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“I would sacrifice /anything/ for yo-him,” she tried to correct herself, but it didn’t work. 

Duke let her think it did work for the moment though. He needed more information before he could even begin to process that. “Then why go in the barn at all? Why not just take the chance and run away with him?”

“Because for one thing, meteors turning the town to dust is a very different thing than just dealing with the troubles. At least the troubles can be managed for the most part. Second of all, that presumes that he would have wanted to run away with me,” she huffed. 

“I would have,” slipped from Duke’s lips. When she sucked in a sharp breath and looked at him with wide eyes he knew that he had to play this out now. He stepped towards her and reached out to brush her hair back from her face. “I would have taken you away from all that in a second if you’d have let me.”

“Because you wanted to save me?” she asked in a whisper, not sure if she could believe what he was implying. 

“Why did you pull away in Colorado? I could sense your hesitation from the start.” Duke asked as he leaned his forehead against hers. He remembered how she had implied that it was one of the highlights of her life when she was saying goodbye to him before the barn, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. 

“Because I was leaving, Duke. I was going to disappear and leave you behind and…it would have been so much harder, but I just couldn’t help myself. Then when I realized that your heart wasn’t in it either…and then you just…let me walk away…”

“See, this is why I wanted to talk about it after, but then Nathan called and then he was dead and then you…you said you loved him when he was dead,” Duke remembered, taking a step back from her. 

Audrey suppressed the whimper at the distance and tried to remember that moment. The moment that had apparently cost her her chance. “I was hysterical, Duke. I didn’t mean it the way you apparently thought. He was my partner and my friend and yes I love him, but not romantically.” 

“But, you…love /me/…romantically,” Duke wanted to make sure that he was completely understanding where they were now. 

She nodded slowly, “Yeah. I do. But losing your friendship too would kill me Duke, so please…” She was cut off by his lips on hers and she lost herself in the kiss. 

When Duke pulled back, he crouched slightly so that he could look her straight in the eye. “It doesn’t matter what happens here with us, whether we crash and burn or not, I will /always/ be your friend. But I love you too much to not give this a shot if that’s what you want too.” 

She answered him with a kiss that she hoped got across everything that she couldn’t even begin to put into words and he kissed her back with just as much love and devotion. It quickly turned heated as hands started roaming and grasping and Duke was the one to stop it, with a great deal of effort. He pulled away and put a little distance between them, taking her hands in his and holding them both apart. “God, you have no idea how badly I want this Audrey, but…it’s been a very long day. There have been a lot of emotions flying around. We’re both exhausted, my leg hurts, and neither of us are completely thinking straight.”

“You’re right,” Audrey said breathlessly. “Just…promise me it won’t get dropped again. That it won’t end up lost in everything else going on.” 

“Again?” Duke asked. 

“Not long after I got here, we had a date, but I got caught up in a trouble emergency and it never got brought up again. Then after Colorado…”

“Yeah. I get it. I promise,” Duke assured her. He’d forgotten about their failed date. More like blocked out the memory of getting stood up and then ending up almost dying thanks to his rebound, but same difference. “I’ll bring coffee in the morning and we can talk, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Audrey smiled. “At least the coffee maker is already loaded,” she teased lightly. 

Duke chuckled and leaned forward for one more quick kiss. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he promised. 

“Goodnight, Duke,” she breathed out. Once he was gone, she all but fell into bed. It felt like it had been a week since she’d fallen out the door this morning. He had been right about being exhausted.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning she woke up slowly, and turned the light on at her bedside table, getting up and padding over to the coffee maker to hit start before she headed to the window and pulled back the curtains to look out. She saw Duke on the deck of the boat, looking like he was working on something, and she smiled as she watched him. It was only a minute before he looked up at her though and gave a wave and then set down whatever he was doing and started heading her way. She went over and poured two cups of coffee, glad they both drank it black, and then timed it perfectly as she opened the door just as he got to it. 

Duke dropped a quick kiss on her as he walked by, grabbing his usual mug and headed to the couch. They drank in comfortable silence as she leaned against him for a while, but when he got up to go refill their cups a bit later, he asked, “So we’re still on the same page as last night, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she smiled, reaching out to twirl the lock of his hair that had come out of his ponytail around her finger. “At least for me, anyway.”

“For me, too,” he said softly, brushing a hand down her cheek. 

“We need to keep this secret,” she realized. “Even if they think I’m Lexi, if they know we’re together…”

“I know,” Duke sighed. “But you need to know, that…I will gladly sacrifice my life to end the troubles. I won’t try to force a decision on you. You know that’s not my thing. But I need you to know that I am willing, and that I would never hold it against you or love you any less.” 

“If I put a bullet in you, Duke, I would be putting the next one in me because I could never live with myself after that,” Audrey said seriously. 

“Okay, yeah. Let’s not go there then,” he chuckled. “But my offer stands.”

“Okay. I get it. Now can we talk about something else, please?” Audrey asked. 

“Yeah. So secret huh?” he brought it back to the original point. 

“Can you live with that?” she asked worriedly. 

“Yeah. I can. For a while at least,” Duke agreed. “But that means we’ll have to spend most of our time up here. It’s a lot easier to explain me dropping by to keep an eye on you than you coming by the Rouge. Plus Jennifer’s staying in the spare room there at the moment, so keeping the secret would be tough unless we let her in on it.” 

“That makes sense. I don’t really think it’s safe right now to let anyone else in on it,” she told him. Especially since she didn’t really know Jennifer. 

“You don’t have a problem with her staying there, do you?” he realized that it might be an issue. He knew that Audrey wasn’t the jealous type any more than he was, but with the added stress of keeping their relationship secret, it might just cross the line. 

“No, of course not. Unless there’s something going on that /should/ bother me?” 

“No,” Duke shook his head. “I mean, yeah, /technically/ the kid that possessed me kissed her when he was me and she kissed him/me back, but I don’t think that really counts.” 

“No, it really doesn’t,” she chuckled and shook her head. “I trust you, Duke. No matter the situation you’re in,” she assured him. 

“I’m glad. Because I would never hurt you, Audrey,” he promised. 

“I know,” she said softly, leaning in for a long slow kiss that quickly became more as they relocated from the couch to the bed. Audrey was glad for Lexi now since she had a little more experience than Audrey’s almost none in this area. Not that she thought that Duke would complain either way, but it did make for a more enjoyable morning…and early afternoon. 

When he heard Audrey’s stomach growling, Duke groaned. “Okay so we have a few options. There’s pretty much nothing here to eat, so you can either go shopping or you can be Lexi and I’ll take you downstairs to the Gull for a late ‘friends’ lunch.”

“I think I’m too hungry to go shopping and then come all the way back here and make something, but I guess I should go shopping after we eat,” she sighed. Pretending not to love him in public would be difficult but she would have to get used to it sooner or later either way and this early it could be brushed off as him just showing her around. 

Once they got dressed and she took a moment to turn on the Lexi persona, they headed downstairs. “And this is the Gull,” Duke said as they went inside for the sake of the public. “If you want to grab a table, I’ll get you a menu.” 

She twirled her hand in her hair and nodded, going to sit at the nearest table. “So what’s good here?” she asked nonchalantly as he handed her the menu. 

“Pretty much everything, but then I own the place so I kinda have to say that,” Duke chuckled. 

“Yeah, okay,” Lexi shrugged as she took a long time perusing the menu. She usually just ordered her favorites here, but ordering Audrey’s favorites wouldn’t be a good idea so Lexi would have to find her own favorites. Once she finally settled on something, Duke headed up to put in the order and brought her rum and coke back himself. They kept their distance throughout the meal and put on a good show before they headed back to Duke’s truck to head into town since he was ‘showing her around’ and she had yet to pick up her car from whatever Nathan had done with it when she disappeared. 

Once they got to the grocery store, Duke said, “I’ve got some of my own shopping to do, but we’ll meet back out here after.” They had agreed that shopping ‘together’ might be a bit too far, so they split up and did their own shopping. Once they were done and Duke’s truck was loaded with the groceries, Lexi said, “Is there a decent clothing store around here? This Audrey of yours had crap taste.” 

Duke snorted amusedly and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if you go down two blocks that way and take a left for one block you’ll find it. I’ll handle some things here and pick you up in an hour. There are perishables in the truck remember.”

“And this is Maine, duh,” she scoffed. “It’s cold. Make it two hours.”

“Fine,” Duke sighed, pretending to be annoyed. “I’ll find something to do while I wait.” 

Once she walked off, Vince and Dave came up and Duke suddenly wondered if she’d noticed them and if that was why she’d gone uber Lexi. “How’s she settling in?” Dave asked. 

Duke shrugged. “Moved into Audrey’s old apartment last night and hasn’t stopped complaining since.”

“So you’re showing her around?” Vince asked. “I would think that Nathan would want to do that.”

“You know Nathan. It’s not a work day so he’s not worried about it and since there’s no food in the apartment, she kinda needed to go shopping,” Duke told them. 

“Just remember that it’s your job to get her and Nathan to spend enough time together to fix this,” Vince warned. 

“I remember,” Duke said distastefully. “I’ll handle it.”

“You better,” Vince said before walking off and Dave shot him an apologetic look as he followed his brother. 

Duke went to find something to do to kill the two hours before he had to pick Audrey up and when he did, she loaded a dozen bags of clothes into the truck as she got in. Duke helped her get everything inside and the groceries put away before he started dinner for her as she put her new clothes away. By the time she was done, Duke was putting dinner for two on the table before they fell into bed. “Do you think it would be too suspicious if you stay?” Audrey asked, wanting nothing more than to sleep in his arms tonight. 

“Nah. No one needs to know where I am and if someone comes by, I can come up with an excuse for being here if it’s at an unreasonable hour,” Duke assured her. He didn’t want to leave either. “I don’t think we could get away with it /every/ night, but sometimes, yeah.” 

“Good,” Audrey said snuggling deeper into his arms. 

The next morning, Duke was up before her, used to waking up early, and made a simple breakfast, handing her a coffee when she woke up. ““Are you testing me?” she asked amusedly. “I don’t like milk.”

Duke held back a chuckle as he said, “It’s not milk. I know you’re Audrey.”

“Mmm. Baileys,” she sighed as she tried it. “I know you’re Duke.” 

“Okay, let me ask you a question,” he said, having been wondering about it since they went out yesterday. “You land in that field. You realize that if anyone figures out you’re Audrey they’ll kill Nathan, so you decide to pretend to be the person you were in the barn…Lexi?” 

“I like it. It rhymes with sexy,” she joked. 

“Yes it does,” Duke chucked, tapping his fingers on his coffee mug. “Here’s my question though. How do you…/do/ Lexi when you’re…really Audrey?” 

“We’re gonna need a hell of a lot more than Baileys to answer that,” Audrey replied, taking another sip of her coffee. 

“See, like that,” Duke said amusedly. “I mean…that’s a really Lexi thing to say.” He was kicking himself for taking a whole day to figure it out. He should have known right away. Granted they were pretty busy, him in particular trying to keep them all alive and then being possessed, but still. He should have known. 

“I’m Audrey, alright? I really am. The same Audrey that helps people with troubles and the same Audrey who…went to Colorado with you,” she gave him a smile. “But unlike Sarah or Lucy, I remember Lexi. You know…like a dream or…remembering some kind of fantasy of yourself.” The conversation was interrupted by Nathan driving up. “You /can’t/ tell him that I’m Audrey. He wants to end the troubles and he has that plan and he’s…” she trailed off and got up. She couldn’t let Nathan push too hard with his plan. That would just put Duke in the line of fire when that came out. “Just promise me that you won’t tell him.” 

Duke looked at her incredulously even as he said, “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“But…he’s gonna figure it out,” Duke pointed out, getting up and walking over to her as she put the dishes in the sink. 

“Why does he have to do that?” she asked pointedly. He hadn’t yet. 

“Because when you care about somebody you can’t…they can’t…Look I’m just telling you he’s gonna figure it out. You need to stay away from him.”

“That’s kind of impossible. The guard wants us to work together. That was /your/ idea,” she pointed out. 

“Look, for today you just keep him from figuring out that you’re Audrey and I’ll keep the guard from killing him,” Duke said. He really hated that stupid plan of his now, but what else could he have done. They would have killed Nathan on the spot otherwise. When he heard the knock on the door, he called out, “In here,” before Audrey went to open it. Trying to hide that he was here would just make everything that much more difficult. 

Nathan came around the corner with a look at Duke before focusing on Audrey. “Hey…uh…Lexi. I brought coffee. I…don’t know what you like so um…”

“Spiked,” Audrey said, tapping her cup, the one that Duke had brought her. She was trying to point out that he was just there for coffee and hoped that Nathan wouldn’t read too much into it. “I like it spiked.”

“Right. Yeah. At ten am,” Nathan said, trying and mostly succeeding at keeping the judgement out of his voice as he shot a dirty look at Duke who was leaning nonchalantly against the counter. 

What followed ended up being an awkward mess, but both Duke and Audrey were glad that it worked, at least somewhat. Audrey was going to be spending the day at the station while Duke was out with Nathan. It was going relatively well until she slipped up with a stupid nickname. She tried to play it off, but given the clock that was counting down on Nathan’s life, she couldn’t bring herself to keep it from him any longer. Once she confirmed for him that she was Audrey, he took a minute to believe it before he rushed at her and hugged her tightly. 

Nathan was overjoyed that Audrey was back but when she told him that it had always been her, he was hurt. He grudgingly accepted her excuses, but that didn’t make it hurt any less once Duke came in and he realized, “You knew.”

“Okay we’ve got eight minutes to find Paul Krebbs,” Audrey tried to distract from this conversation.”

Nathan just kept staring at Duke though and Duke knew that he wasn’t going to get out of answering. “I figured it out,” he admitted. 

“When?”

“The first day,” he said sheepishly. When Nathan started coming at him, he said, “Nathan, we don’t have time for this…”

“And you didn’t say anything to me?” Nathan accused. “After everything.”

“I was trying to keep you alive,” Duke snapped. 

“I don’t want you to keep me alive. I want to end the troubles. You should want that too…”

“You’re right. I should,” Duke said heatedly before sighing. “Pisses me off that I don’t.” That he cared more Audrey’s happiness than getting rid of all the troubles. But he wasn’t going to push her into doing something that would destroy her. 

Later on, in the office, Nathan and Audrey finally had time for a conversation. “I’m glad you’re back,” Nathan told her. 

“Why?” Audrey couldn’t help but ask. That was part of the reason that she hadn’t wanted him to know that it was her. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Especially since he hadn’t known her until she had a major slip-up. Until she practically handed him the information. “Why are you glad I’m back?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Never mind,” Audrey shook her head and went back to her paperwork. 

“Are you mad at me?” Nathan asked worriedly. 

“No,” Audrey said quickly. 

“You’re mad at me,” he accused. “You told Paul to be honest and you’re lying to me. You’ve /been/ lying to me.”

Apparently they were doing this now. “Because I made a decision to go into the barn and end the troubles, Nathan. And then you shot agent Howard. You screwed it all up.” 

“Audrey…I couldn’t let you go,” he said firmly. 

“Right. Exactly. And now I have to be the one to kill /you/. I have to let /you/ go. And I won’t do it,” Audrey said, grabbing her coat and heading for the door. Even if it would work, she wouldn’t do it. 

“I’m sorry,” Nathan called after her. “I…I made a deal with the guard.”

“They’re not going to find out who I am. This will /never/ be their decision.” 

“Well…I thought maybe it was mine.”

“Well you’re wrong, Nathan,” she said seriously. “Because I care about you. That makes this my decision.” When she saw the look on Nathan’s face, she regretted saying that. Now he would just be even more of a dog with a bone. This was a nightmare, but she couldn’t put a target on Duke’s back by telling him about them. At least not without fully thinking through all the ramifications. 

Later that night when Duke came by, she had a more important question to ask. “How’s Wade?” 

Duke sighed and threw up his hands. “I don’t know. He just…shut me out and now I don’t know where he is. I need to find him, but…”

“Yeah, okay. I know. Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked, knowing that he wanted to keep this out of police hands, but not sure how much help he would accept. 

“If you can track his phone or something without taking it through the cops, that would be great, otherwise just any ideas you have,” Duke shrugged. 

“I should be able to track him without anyone else knowing, but only from the station, and if I got back tonight…”

“No, I get it. I’m sure it’ll be fine for now,” Duke assured her. “We can worry about it tomorrow.” 

“Okay. But if you need to go, I understand,” she told him. “I mean, if you want to keep looking for him or if he comes back to the boat or the Gull or something…”

“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea. I don’t want to miss him. We really need to handle this as soon as possible.” 

“I know,” she kissed him gently. “Just know that I’m here. Anything you need.” 

“Thank you, Audrey,” he said earnestly before heading out. He didn’t end up finding Wade that night, but he did the next morning and they had a good talk before Wade pointed out Freddie sleeping on the bench under the stairs. When he was still too drunk to walk, much less drive, Duke huffed and drove him to the station, though part of the reason was to talk to Audrey. 

Nathan took Freddy to a cell to give them a few minutes alone and Duke closed the door, and told her quietly, “I talked to Wade a little while ago. It’s all good. He’s leaving town soon. Just needs a few days to figure out where to go.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it. I mean, that he’s getting out of dodge instead of hurting anyone, not that you’re losing your brother again,” she added the explanation quickly. 

“No, I know,” Duke told her. “And thanks for trying to help. I’ll try to keep an eye on him until he leaves, but I don’t think there will be any problems. Now that he knows how it feels and how hard it is to control, he realizes how dangerous it is.”

Once Nathan came back, Duke headed out. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to Audrey in public, but he was at her apartment when she got home with dinner waiting before they went to bed. When he woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, they quickly figured out what had happened to Freddy as Audrey bandaged his arm. Since she had to go in and it wasn’t safe to go back to sleep, Duke headed back to the boat and woke Jennifer up too. Unfortunately he couldn’t get in touch with his brother until he came back around midmorning. 

When he realized that Wade was lying to him, at least he had something to do to keep him awake as he tried to figure out what was going on. Fishing for info from Dwight was made easier when he was in the hospital sedated and he took the opportunity to go through his things. He didn’t want to say anything to Audrey until he was sure that it wasn’t something minor. Finding Wade’s dumping ground was a major dose of cold water and he knew that he had to do something. He called Audrey and thankfully she was still at the station and could track Wade. She gave him the location and Duke headed straight there just in time to save a troubled guy from getting in his car. 

Duke tried to reason with his brother, but it didn’t do any good, and just proved how far gone he was so Duke knocked him out and took him back to the boat, calling Audrey on the way. “Audrey, we have a problem.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked moving away from the girl that she was just getting settled into her bed and stepped outside for this conversation. 

“Wade…he’s been killing people. Troubled people. It’s bad. I tried to talk him down, but…he threatened to take your identity public. Bring us all down.”

“What are we gonna do?” she asked worriedly. 

“I don’t know,” Duke said helplessly. “I’ve got him knocked out right now and I’m taking him to the boat to get him locked up, but from there…”

“Okay. But you have it handled for right now?” 

“Yeah. I don’t know how long I can keep it up though.”

“Okay, well I’m working on getting this dream trouble resolved right now, so if you can keep him locked down for tonight, we can figure it out tomorrow once we’re able to get some sleep and think on it.” 

“Okay. Yeah. I can do that,” Duke assured her. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as well as he expected. Duke had run over to the Gull to pick up some things, not expecting Jennifer back and when he walked back in she had already let Wade out and his brother was out of control. Once Wade was laying there dead and Duke realized what he’d done, his only thought was Audrey. She had trusted him to keep Wade under control for one damn night and he’d failed. He grabbed his phone and called her, hating that he had to wake her up, but this was important. “I’m sorry. I…Wade got out…he…he was about to kill Jennifer…I had to…I can’t…”

“I’ll be right there,” Audrey said seriously, already out of bed and slipping her shoes on, not bothering to change out of her pajamas. She could hear how completely gutted Duke was right now in his voice and was blaming herself just as much as he was clearly blaming himself. She ran across to the boat, not even caring who saw her, not that there were many people out this early and rushed in, finding Jennifer bleeding from a cut on her neck and Duke kneeling next to his brother’s body, hands covered in blood. She went over and knelt in front of him, taking his face in her hands. “This is /not/ your fault,” she said seriously. 

“I killed him…my brother…if I had just told him the truth to start with…if I hadn’t stepped out…if I…”

“If /I/ had handled this last night. If /I/ had arrested him that first day. There’s no point torturing yourself with what ifs, Duke. You did what you had to do,” she said gently, caressing his cheeks. 

He pushed away from her. “You don’t even know what happened!” he snapped, getting up to start pacing. 

“I don’t need to know what happened to know that, Duke,” Audrey assured him. “I know /you/. You don’t hurt /anyone/ unless they don’t give you a choice, much less your brother. You did everything you could to help him. To protect him.” 

“I didn’t do enough. Not nearly enough,” he said disgusted with himself, wiping the tears from his face with his bloody hand. 

“He was about to kill me,” Jennifer jumped in. “You tried to talk him down. You tried to get him to stop. He said he couldn’t control it and he ran straight into the knife. He did it on purpose, Duke.” She didn’t know what was going on between him and Lexi but there were more important things to worry about right now. 

“Hey,” she moved over to him, but he turned away. “Hey, Duke,” she grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. “It’s gonna be okay, alright? You’ll be okay. I’m right here. I love you and I will help you through this.” She pulled him into a hug and he just sagged in her arms as his head fell onto her shoulder. She moved them slightly so that he could sit on the bench and she sat on his lap and held him, running her hands through his hair for a long moment as she felt his tears falling. “It’s okay, Duke,” she said softly, kissing his head. “I’ve got you. It’s gonna be okay.” 

Duke pulled himself together after a few minutes and patted her leg to signal her to get up. “I need to…to take care of him. I’ll bury him. I know the perfect spot.” 

“I’ll help you,” Audrey offered. 

“No,” Duke shook his head. “I need to do this alone. Please. Besides, I’ve felt your phone buzzing for the last five minutes. You’re needed elsewhere and we can’t risk anyone finding out that you’re Audrey.” 

“I don’t care right now,” she said honestly. 

“But I do,” Duke said, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “Because otherwise…this was for nothing. Please, Audrey.” 

“Okay,” she sighed. “But if you need me…if you need anything…” 

“I know. I love you too,” Duke said with a sad smile. “And Jennifer…” he looked over at her. 

“Mum’s the word. I won’t tell anyone. I promise,” she assured them. 

Duke nodded and headed to get a blanket to wrap Wade in giving Jennifer the opportunity to tell Audrey, “I’ll take care of him today. As much as he’ll let me at least.” 

“Thank you,” Audrey told her. “And you can call me too if he’s too stubborn.” 

“I will,” she nodded, and Audrey reached out to give her arm a grateful squeeze before she headed out. She called Nathan back on her way back to her apartment to change and had just enough time to do so before he got there to pick her up. 

When he dropped her back off that night, Nathan started a fight about Lexi. “Lexi’s not going anywhere so just drop it,” Audrey said firmly. 

“I can’t. I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Nathan said desperately. 

“Nathan, what’s your problem? Is this really about Lexi? Because you didn’t have a problem with Sarah.” 

“Oh so this about Sarah now?” 

“She’s a part of me too. A part that apparently you’re pretty familiar with,” she couldn’t help but add. That had been the biggest clue that Nathan didn’t really love her. That he was addicted to her touch. It was the only thing he could feel and that’s what he really wanted. Then his refusal to accept her decision with the barn and the fact that he hadn’t been able to see her when she got back just proved it. 

“I’m not going to apologize for what happened. You have no idea how hard this has been for me,” Nathan snapped. 

“For you?” Audrey said incredulously. “At least you have the luxury of being one person. At least you know who you are. You know /what/ you are.” 

“Well I want to know what /we/ are,” he snapped. 

“Too much has happened, Nathan,” she shook her head. “We can’t be Audrey and Nathan. Not anymore. We work together. That’s it.” She just hoped that he would leave it at that. 

“Right. See you at work,” Nathan said angrily as he stormed out. He only made it as far as the stairs though before he turned and went back. “I don’t care who you are. Or what you are. I love you.” 

She faltered for a moment, trying to find the words to tell him that she was with Duke. That she loved Duke. This whole conversation changed things. She couldn’t keep it from him anymore. Before she could say anything though he was kissing her and she froze for a moment. It only took a few seconds for her to push him away. Unfortunately, when she did, she looked up to see Duke standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression on his face. 

“What’s going on?” Duke asked carefully.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Audrey said quickly, begging with her eyes for him to believe her. 

He had no trouble believing that. He trusted Audrey completely. That didn’t meant that he didn’t want an explanation though. “Okay. Then what is it?” he asked calmly. 

“Wait…you two?” Nathan realized. 

“Yes, Nathan. Duke and I are together,” she told him. 

“But I thought…” 

“I’m sorry, Nathan. Once you figured out that I was actually Audrey, we were trying to decide if we were going to let you know that part, but I was worried about other people finding out. I didn’t want to put a target on Duke’s back too and the chance that you can be the key to ending the troubles is the only thing keeping you alive, and…” 

Duke realized what had happened then and walked over, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and kissing her head. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything will work out,” he assured her. 

“I should go,” Nathan said shortly. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling right now, but he couldn’t figure that out here. He had been so sure that he and Audrey were meant to be, but now…he didn’t know what to think. 

“Nate,” Duke called after him. “We’re all okay, right?” 

“We will be,” Nathan nodded. “I just…can’t tonight.” 

“Okay,” Duke completely understood, and Nathan took the opportunity to leave. 

Once they were alone, Audrey pulled away from Duke and looked at him worriedly. “/He/ kissed /me/, Duke. I swear. I just froze. I didn’t mean…” 

“Hey, shh,” Duke said shutting her up with a quick kiss. “I know. I figured that much out from the conversation there.”

“So you’re not…upset?” she asked. 

“Course not,” Duke shrugged. “I trust you Audrey. You didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Nathan. He didn’t know. He does now. We’re all good.” 

“Good,” she sighed happily and wrapped her arms around him. “I hope you know how much I love you.” 

“I have a pretty good idea,” he smiled as he leaned down to kiss her. 

She let them be happy for a few minutes before she had to ask, “Did you take care of Wade?”

Duke sighed heavily and slumped, plopping down on the couch dejectedly. “Not yet. I just…couldn’t yet. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I can still help you,” she offered, sitting in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. 

“No. It’s still too risky. And you know me. I’m better off doing it alone.” 

“Yeah. Okay,” she sighed sadly, leaning her forehead against his temple. She did know him. She knew how much he valued solitude. Especially when he needed to work through things. During the initial spiral, he’d needed her, but now he needed to figure it out on his own and she would let him. “Stay tonight?” she asked. 

Duke considered it for a moment. He wasn’t sure that he was particularly up for company, but at the same time the idea of going back to the boat where he’d killed his brother and where his brother’s dead body was stashed…he couldn’t handle that. “I probably won’t be the best company.”

“That’s okay,” Audrey assured him. “Why don’t I make us up some sandwiches and we can just sit here and relax for a little while before bed.” When Duke nodded, she kissed his head and got up to do just that. There was very little conversation for the rest of the night and it wasn’t long before they went to bed, but just to sleep this time. Audrey pretended not to notice how Duke clung to her a little more tightly than usual and she just did what she could to offer him whatever comfort she could. By the time she woke up the next morning, Duke was gone, but the coffee was made and his mug was in the sink. There was a note on the counter saying that he was going to take off for a few days to get his head on straight and she just wished that he had woken her up long enough to say goodbye. Then again, he probably just couldn’t stomach it. This was how he dealt with things.


	3. Chapter 3

When Audrey got to the station, Nathan closed the door before telling her. “I’m sorry about last night. You told me that we couldn’t have anything together and I just didn’t listen. I got the wrong idea before you went in the barn and…”

“No, Nathan, it’s fine,” Audrey assured him. “It’s as much my fault as it is yours. I should have told you that Duke and I were together once you found out that I was Audrey.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asked hurt. 

“I was thinking about it. Trying to decide how much more danger that could put Duke in and how to bring it up if I did, but everything was so busy and going haywire that I just…hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” 

“I guess that makes sense. I mean, it’s only been a few days since I found out so, that’s not a whole lot of time,” Nathan admitted. 

“And I owe you an apology for before the barn too. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that. I just wanted to give you a happy memory to hold onto before I left. Since I wasn’t supposed to be back, it shouldn’t have been a big thing, and then I came back and everything got all jumbled up, so just…I’m sorry.”

“I get it, Parker,” Nathan nodded. “It was a nice thing to do, and if things had worked out the way you intended…well it wouldn’t have been an issue. I’m curious though…how long have you and Duke been together?” 

“Since I got back and he pegged me as Audrey the first day,” she snorted amusedly. 

“Because you didn’t want to get too close before you left,” Nathan realized, knowing that there had been something between them for quite a while, even if it hadn’t been acted on before she got back. When she nodded he said, “I hope I didn’t cause any problems for you two.”

“No, Nathan. Duke and I are good. And we’re both good with you too. It was an honest mistake,” she assured him. 

“Good. I’m glad,” he said relieved. If he couldn’t have her, he was glad it was Duke that he lost her to. 

The next few hours was spent on paperwork until they got a call about some kind of pressure trouble. When the heard that Vince and Dave were going through decompression, they headed to the dock to check on them and hopefully get some leads. Audrey saw Duke walking across and he tried to detour to avoid them, but she couldn’t help but call out, “Thanks so much for helping Vince and Dave back there.” 

“Yeah,” Duke waved it off, walking away faster. He couldn’t deal with this right now. He just wanted to get the hell out of this godforsaken town for a while. 

“Hey Duke, hold up,” Nathan called after him. “Hey, you’re a scuba diver right? We could really use your help on this case.”

“It’s fine, Nathan. We don’t need his help,” Audrey whispered soft enough that Duke couldn’t hear it. 

Duke stopped before turning back around with a scoff and stalked back towards Nathan. “You know, I liked it so much better when you hated me…How the /hell/ did we get here?” 

“Get…where?” Nathan asked confused. 

“I’m supposed to be the selfish one,” Duke snapped. “Now all I do is put my ass on the line for the two of you. You’re supposed to be the cops that protect this town, but lately the only people you seem to be protecting are yourselves.” 

When he stalked away, Nathan just looked more confused than offended as he turned to Audrey. “I thought you said we were good?” 

“You are. That wasn’t about that. He’s just…dealing with some stuff right now and he was on his way out to clear his head for a few days when all this happened. You know how he is,” Audrey tried to explain. 

“What kind of stuff could he be dealing with that would possibly justify him talking to you like that?” Nathan asked incredulously. 

“He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to you,” she had to point out first. “And it’s not my place to tell you what he’s going through, but I will tell you that it’s completely understandable that he’s all spun out at the moment.” When Nathan just sighed and nodded, she said, “Come on. We should get back to the case.”

As usual, things got worse before they got better, and if Audrey had realized why Nathan was calling Duke, or even that he /was/ calling Duke, she would have put a stop to it. As it was, she wasn’t particularly surprised that Nathan got sucker-punched, but it hadn’t dawned on her until that moment that killing Wade would have killed his own curse and she felt even worse. She understood his desire to get away and clear his head even more after that. To have that grief and guilt warring with his probable relief that his trouble was gone would be sending him into more of a guilt spiral. Audrey’s heart warmed when he still ended up coming through for them anyway. 

Nathan realized what must have happened while Duke was hauling him out of there after the line on his suit busted and he couldn’t help but ask once they were clear and got their helmets off, “Your trouble’s gone. Did you kill Wade?” That would definitely explain why he was so messed up and why Audrey was being so understanding. 

“I didn’t have a choice,” Duke said hauntedly, and Nathan just nodded as he reached out a comforting hand to his friend’s shoulder. Audrey was right. It /was/ completely understandable that he was so spun out. He couldn’t imagine having been forced to kill his own brother. 

Once Duke got back to the boat, he was helping Jennifer get some stuff packed for a stay at the inn when Vince and Dave came barging in to talk to her much to Duke’s irritation. Could he just get a damn break already? When they realized that the ‘great evil’ was there, likely due to bringing Audrey back from the barn, they decided to go talk to her and see if she had learned anything there that might be able to help. They were getting ready to head up the stairs when they figured out that the plan for Audrey to kill Nathan…or Duke if they knew…was now the worst possible plan, which ended up with Duke slipping up and calling her Audrey. Before he could get cornered, a shot rang out from Audrey’s apartment and Duke bounded up the stairs three at a time. 

Once he made sure that Audrey was okay, everyone else had made it up and Vince got back to the ‘Audrey’ slip so they came clean and even admitted that they were together, now that the risk of them trying to make her shoot Duke was gone. Once Vince, Dave, and Jennifer left, Duke offered to stick around and help figure out who was after her but Audrey just shook her head. “No, it’ll be fine. I’m gonna call Nathan and we’ll figure it out. You go take your trip. You need to take care of you too,” she assured him. 

“Okay. If you’re sure,” Duke said hesitantly. 

“I’m sure,” she promised, leaning up for a soft kiss. “I’ll be okay. Nathan will watch my back and we’ll get him. Go take your ‘you’ time.” Duke wasn’t a cop. He was a smuggler. He was a loner. He shouldn’t need to be at their beck and call. This whole situation wasn’t his burden to bear. She appreciated his help more than she could say, but she didn’t want to see him neglect his own well-being for it. It wasn’t his job. It was hers. 

“Okay. But I’ll stay in radio range in case something happens,” he decided. “And do me a favor and either have Nathan stay here with you or you stay with him until you catch them?” 

“I will if it’ll make you feel better,” she chuckled. 

“It would, yes,” Duke told her, pulling her in for one more lingering kiss. “I’ll see you in a few days,” he promised before heading out. Audrey stood at the window and watched the Rouge head out to sea for a few minutes until Nathan got there. Since he was gone, they just gathered what evidence they could find and decided to deal with it in the morning and Nathan easily agreed to sleep on the couch. 

While part of Nathan was surprised that Duke had wanted him to stay with Audrey after everything between them, all the misunderstandings and the way they both felt about her, mostly he completely understood. If their positions were reversed he would do the same. Duke knew that Nathan would never let anything happen to Audrey and he trusted them. Duke didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. He never had. 

The next couple days were hectic, and once Jennifer learned that the man that attacked Audrey was from the barn, and the other man that had attacked others was pegged as being from there too, she was desperate to be involved in the investigation. Thanks to Dwight’s quick thinking while they had him kidnapped, they got them both and then netted the other guy from the barn. The good one. But he had lost his memories. 

From there things got really crazy. Dwight was ranting about Duke being a murderer and wanting to kill them all, Nathan was going after William like a jealous lover, and Jennifer had turned an Audrey over Duke. It didn’t take Audrey long to realize that they were being affected by some kind of trouble. While she knew that Dwight and Duke had never had the best relationship, they were well past this level of animosity. Nathan wasn’t a jealous person, even if they were together and he had any right to be, and Jennifer…Audrey knew that she had a crush on Duke. That much had been obvious all along, but it wasn’t nearly this bad. Something was messing with their heads. Probably a trouble. She was wishing that Duke was there right about then, but she managed to get them all locked down for the moment while she and William went to get the stupid box that all this was apparently about. 

Learning that she had been played so expertly pissed Audrey off. She felt like an idiot, but if William thought for one second that she would go running into his arms, whether she remembered the person she was when she supposedly loved him or not, he would be in for a world of disappointment. After the things that he’d done, she found the very idea revolting. Unfortunately, with the help of his creepy created people, he managed to get away, but they would be on their guard. They wouldn’t stop looking for him. Unfortunately, since they were on the run again, and William now seemed to be fixated on her, Nathan was back on her couch that night. 

It was the middle of the night when Duke got back, and he couldn’t resist going to check on Audrey. He let himself into her apartment quietly, having noticed that the lights were off, and immediately found a gun pointed at his face. When he noticed Nathan at the other end of the gun, he just reached up and gently pushed it to the side. Nathan had realized it was him, but hadn’t gotten his adrenaline to calm quite enough to move it himself so he didn’t fight the motion. Once he got it holstered, he motioned Duke out to the balcony deck and quietly gave him an update on everything before heading out and letting Duke take his place. 

Audrey jolted awake as Duke slipped into bed, but he quickly reassured her and she sagged in his arms. “Sorry I wasn’t here,” he whispered as they got comfortable. 

“Don’t be. S’all okay,” she murmured sleepily, burying her head in his chest as she drifted back off. 

The next morning, she was woken with breakfast in bed as Duke tried to make up for taking off like he did. He knew that she understood, but he wanted to make sure that she knew that he appreciated that understanding. She thanked him with a kiss, before asking, “How are you feeling?” 

“Better,” Duke admitted. “Not great, but I don’t think that’s possible right now. I’m okay though.”

“Good,” she said relieved. “I’m glad it helped you. The rest will just take time,” she pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. 

“I know,” Duke said with a smile, running a hand through her hair as they ate. He couldn’t believe that he’d gotten this lucky and wondered if he would ever stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

They had barely finished breakfast when Nathan called with an emergency. Apparently, William was up to his tricks again. Once she got the information and Duke realized that it was an all hands on deck kind of emergency, he went along to help. A freaking volcano. In Maine. It was beyond even their usual insanity and most of the day was spent in rescue efforts. Audrey and Nathan were doing the cop thing at the same time as the rescuing and Duke just had the one job to focus on. By the time they made it home just after dark, they were all exhausted and filthy. Duke and Audrey had missed each other while Duke was gone though and they hadn’t yet had a chance to remedy that, so they found the energy to enjoy each other for a couple hours, starting with a shared shower, before they let sleep claim them. 

The next morning, Audrey woke up on the floor alone and immediately called for Duke even as she sat up and realized that she seemed to be in some kind of storage space. She recognized the architecture of her apartment at least, not that it made her any less confused. She was more than a little irritated that she didn’t have any shoes as she was forced to go find out what was going on, and even more irritated that her new car was gone. Of course, it was. This was clearly going to be one of those ‘Haven days’. She huffed at the idea of the Gull being a bait shop, but since it was currently closed, she only had one choice right now and she started walking down the road. 

When she saw the police van…and since when did Haven PD drive vans…she was more than a little relieved. When Duke got out of it, dressed all nice and wearing a badge she couldn’t help but laugh as he walked up and asked, “Ma’am? What are you doing out here?”

“Is this a joke?” she asked through her giggles. 

“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one walking around in your pajamas with no shoes on,” Duke said, fighting his own amusement. Her laugh was more than a little contagious. “You okay? You need some help?” 

“Duke, come on,” she laughed. 

“You know my name,” he realized suspiciously. He was rather well-known around here, but the way she said it…like she knew him…it put him a bit on edge. 

“Yeah. I’m Audrey. Audrey Parker,” she said nervously figuring out that there was something going on. Especially when she didn’t see the normal mischief in his eyes that she did when he was teasing her and when there was no recognition there, even at her name. “You don’t know me,” she said slowly, trying to come to terms with that and figure out where to go from there. 

“Okay, I’m gonna assume that you don’t…have any ID on you,” Duke said, trying to keep himself on track. 

“No, I don’t have any ID on me,” Audrey sighed wearily. 

“So Miss Parker. Where you heading?” he asked. 

“Well I was heading to Haven PD to find Nathan,” she told him. Since she’d found Duke, Nathan was her next priority. When he showed no recognition for the name she tried again. “Nathan Wuornos.”

Duke shook his head ruefully. “There is no Wuornos at Haven PD. Wanna try again?” 

“Okay, listen. This has got to be some kind of Haven thing. I woke up this morning and everything’s different. You’re a cop. I mean you look good as a cop, but you’re still a cop,” she started to explain, noticing the flattered amusement at her compliment that was just pure Duke, but she continued. “The Gull, it isn’t the Gull…Let’s get in the car and we’ll go sort this all out. 

“You’re not really making any sense right now…”

“You know about this town though right?” she asked impatiently. 

“Ma’am, I know everything about this town. I’m third generation Haven PD,” he explained patiently. When she just looked like she’d been beat over the head with a mallet…or more likely, given the circumstances, had some delusion shattered, he felt bad for her. “Come on. Let’s get you off the side of the road,” he said gently reaching out towards her with a guiding gesture. “Come on,” he coaxed when she didn’t seem to want to move. “Let’s go. It’s alright. You’re gonna be fine,” he assured her. When she reached out to touch his arm, almost like she was making sure that he was real, he accepted it. “Yep. That’s right. Just hop in the back of the car for me.”

“Back?” she couldn’t help but ask incredulously and he relented and let her sit up front. During the drive, she was mostly silent, just trying to take all this in and formulate some kind of theory and when they stopped and Duke started to get out, she realized that she might just be losing her chance. “Seriously, Duke…I think that-that something’s happened to you,” she got out to follow him. 

“Says the woman who’s walking around in her pajamas,” Duke pointed out as he started to walk away. 

“Okay, listen…if you’re a cop, then why don’t you take me to the station?” she asked. Maybe she would be able to find out more there. Hopefully it was just Duke that was changed then they could get to the bottom of this and fix him. 

“You haven’t broken any laws,” Duke said almost amused before he got back on track. “Now I have to make an urgent stop. Now if you agree to get a psych evaluation at the hospital, I will help you out. We will…get you some shoes to start with, and I will help you try to find your friend.”

“Yes,” she breathed out. Whatever it took. She could see /her/ Duke still there under the surface. The one who would always go out of his way to help people, her especially. She would do what he asked and then maybe they could get this figured out. 

“But first, I need you to wait in the car while I go take this witness statement,” he said, gesturing to the vandalized billboard. 

“Vandalism? That’s what you’re worried about?” she asked incredulously. Since when was that even in the same ballpark as ‘urgent’. 

“I know. This town is going to hell,” he huffed. “If I leave you here you going to take off on me?” he asked worriedly. 

“Won’t get very far,” she sighed, gesturing to her bare feet as Duke walked off, telling her again to wait in the car. She had no intention of trying to take off. Whatever was going on, she trusted Duke to help her. Even if he didn’t know her. That didn’t mean that she would just wait quietly like a good girl. When she noticed Vince and Dave pull up, she immediately went over to them to try and convince them that something was going on, only to be accused of being Haven’s first homeless person and told that there was no such thing as the troubles. Once Duke got back, the ride to the hospital was mostly spent just trying to wrap her head around that. She sat still for the exam, and then ran into Duke again in the hallway. 

“Well…nurses say you’re okay,” he said relieved. At least whatever it was wasn’t some kind of head injury. “Doc’s gonna have to sign off before you’re officially released, but uh…yeah.” 

“Were you able to find out anything…” she asked hesitantly. 

“Nobody named Nathan Wuornos has ever lived in Haven. I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. 

“That’s okay,” Audrey shrugged. “You know, I’ll find him. I always do.” She was sure he was around here somewhere, and wondered for a moment if the docks might be a good place to check. If Duke was the cop, maybe Nathan was the smuggler. She had hoped it would be easier, but oh well. 

“Look, um…I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but uh,” he pulled a business card and a pen out of his pocket and wrote on the card. “You certainly don’t have to do it alone. I’m here. If you need to call. That’s my cell.” 

Audrey took it with a bright smile as she shook her head. It seemed that Duke would always be drawn to her in any universe. She could read him like a book. Even fake him. “I still can’t believe you’re a cop.” 

“It’s the hair right?” he gestured to the ponytail. “Yeah the chief hates it too,” he huffed a laugh. 

“And so you keep it,” she said with a knowing smirk. 

Duke looked at her in confused awe. “Yeah,” he admitted with a chuckle, wondering how she managed to get him so easily. 

“Might want to be careful that you don’t get fired,” she whispered conspiratorially. 

“Uh, not likely. The chief is my dad,” he pointed out, noticing the freaked out look on her face at that and wondering what it was about, but the nurse came to get her to see the doctor before he could ask. 

Audrey pulled herself together and turned back to him. “Okay, well…thanks for everything. Meeting you was really…unexpected,” she said with a smile. Maybe she should just not worry about fixing things. Everyone was better off here. There were no troubles. Everyone was safe. Even Duke was happy, had his parents, or at least his Dad, who clearly wasn’t a serial killer in this world. She would miss her Duke desperately, but this one was still so much the same in all the important ways. Maybe she should just make a life here. It had always been her mission to end the troubles and now the solution had just fallen in her lap. It bore consideration at least. 

“Well, the feeling’s mutual,” Duke grinned, giving her arm a comforting squeeze as he walked by with an earnest, “Stay safe.” When he couldn’t help but look back at her, he wondered what the hell he was doing. He’d never been one to have a thing for the crazies, but there was just something about her. He put it out of his head for now. She had his number. She would call if she wanted to and if not, oh well. He was probably better off forgetting her anyway.

When Audrey walked into the exam room and realized that the doctor was Nathan. Nathan ‘Hanson’, she was caught even more off guard. Of course. If there were no troubles then everything wouldn’t have gone to hell and he would have been raised by his biological father so his name wouldn’t be Wuornos. When he got called out for another patient, she followed to watch in the window, still trying to come to terms with all the changes in this world, but then William was there. She had to admit that he had a point that no one would believe her if she tried to sound the alarm. Being here for a psych eval was coming back to bite her in the ass now. 

Seeing Nathan’s family just made her more sure than ever that this place was better. That it needed to stay if at all possible. Unfortunately, William had other ideas and his threats made her more than a little nervous. She wished more than anything that she could just take him down and take him in, but it would just cause more problems and likely end her up in either a padded room or a jail cell. Then she remembered Duke. He had felt something with her. Some part of him trusted her, even now. She had seen it. She would just have to hope that part wasn’t buried too deeply for this. She found a phone and called him to ask him to meet her for lunch. 

When she got to the café, he said, “I didn’t think you’d call, but um…I’m glad you did,” he admitted. “Did you find your friend you were looking for?” He wondered if he was going to get that story at all. 

“Not exactly,” she said seriously, clearly on edge. 

“You know, I meant what I said earlier. I really do /want/ to help you,” he told her, getting a bit on edge himself at her demeanor. 

“That’s why I’m here,” she focused clearly on him. “Listen, Haven has a big problem.”

“You have seen the signs right?” he asked amusedly. “This is the safest town in…”

“Okay, there’s a situation that you need to be aware of,” she cut him off. “There is a man. He is extremely dangerous, and I don’t think that you’re ready for whatever he’s planning.” 

“Woah,” he held up a hand to stop her, indignation rising in his chest. “I know that we are a small town, but I know how to do my job.”

“Listen, that’s not what I meant, alright?” she said quickly, trying not to be too impatient with him. Duke had never responded well to that. Unfortunately, this situation had her so freaked out that she couldn’t help it. “HPD needs to take precautions. You can’t just be on defense with this guy. He’s always a step ahead. I can help you. I can help you find him, ID him, bring him in.” 

Duke was getting a suspicion of what was going on her and he put on a forced relaxed demeanor, leaning back in his chair. “Okay…I think I know what’s going on. You think I’m Barney Fife because you…are law enforcement too.” He watched for her reactions before continuing. “You know, I found an Audrey Parker in the FBI, but it wasn’t you.” As he saw her discomfort and the way she was looking around nervously, he figured, “You undercover?”

“It’s complicated,” she admitted. She wasn’t going to completely deny it. Not when it could get him to help her, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him either. She could tell that he wasn’t happy with the answer though, so she quickly moved on. “Listen, I /know/ this guy.”

“Alright. Who is he?” Duke asked, willing to play along for now. 

“His name is William,” Audrey told him. She could see that he didn’t completely believe her yet, but was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

“Okay…does William have a last name?” he asked expectantly. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to answer that, or /couldn’t/ answer that, he just drawled a skeptical, “Riiight.” Before anything else could be said though, his phone rang. “Excuse me. I have to take this.” 

Audrey huffed and leaned back in her seat, trying to wrack her brain and figure out how to get him to see the truth. When he turned back with a shocked and haunted look on his face, she sat straight up worriedly. “What’s wrong?” 

“Haven just had it’s first murder in forty-two years,” he said scrutinizing her. “You knew this was gonna happen.” He wasn’t sure yet if she was involved or if she really was trying to stop it, but he was going to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did, which was why he brought her along to the crime scene. Either she would be able to help catch this guy, or she would slip up and reveal her involvement. He watched her reactions carefully when they got there and either she was a very good actress or she wasn’t involved. His tune changed abruptly when he found the long blonde hair in Dave’s hand. Involved it was. She would have had just enough time to kill them and then meet him for lunch to try and set up an airtight alibi. 

Duke was just glad that she didn’t run or try to fight as he removed his guns and arrested her. He wouldn’t admit that he was deliberately slow in the action, wanting to see what she would do. He felt like a complete idiot for wanting to believe her protests of innocence, and he knew that his anger showed in his voice, but he kept it tightly under control as he took her in. By the time they got back to the station and he got her in the interrogation room, he was calm enough to admit that there was at least a chance that she was telling the truth, and he got the idea that an antagonistic approach wouldn’t help him much with her anyway. He was sure of it when she said impatiently, “We both know you don’t have enough to charge me and you can’t hold me here indefinitely.”

“Well, Audrey Parker,” he drawled, walking around the room and trying to unsettle her. “I wouldn’t have to hold you at all if you’d just be straight with me.” He stopped and looked seriously at her. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?” 

“Truth huh?” she asked, wondering if that was the best idea, but not seeing any other option left at this point. “Listen, what I’m about to tell you is gonna sound really…”

“Crazy,” he cut her off, finishing the sentence, having heard this line before. “Yeah, I got it.” 

“This whole world. This…isn’t right,” she tried to explain. “My Haven…the real Haven…people can do things…supernatural things, and /we/ call them troubles, so somebody’s trouble turned…everything…into what it is now.” 

Duke was fighting with himself whether to believe her or not. It was one of those stories that was too crazy to make up. He leaned forward on the table, trying to keep the nerves out of his voice. “And only you know about this?” he asked, trying to find something that would tell him one way or the other. 

“Yes,” she said, seeing that he wanted to believe her. “And William,” she added. “And he’s killing people to try and find the troubled person who can change this back.”

“William…right,” Duke said thoughtfully before making a decision. “Look…I /tried/ to help you…but this…this is too much,” he shook his head and went to walk out. He was not going to let himself fall down her rabbit hole. 

“Okay, Duke, I know you!” she called after him desperately. She’d seen him try to trust her. Want to trust her. She couldn’t just let him walk away. “In my Haven you’re…you’re the criminal,” she jerked against her cuffs. When he gave a disbelieving scoff, she realized that probably wasn’t the best way to convince him. “Yes, with the same long hair and you-you-you do what you want…you live on a boat for god’s sake.” She knew how much he loved the sea. If anything would convince him, that would. 

“A boat,” he said skeptically. 

“Yeah,” she said, calming down. She could see that it had sparked something. “And…we’re friends.” She knew that telling him that they were together wouldn’t be any better than pointing out that he was a criminal, so she just stuck with friends for now. “We /trust/ each other,” she said earnestly. She could see that she had gotten through to him somehow as he took his hand off the door and started to walk back over, but then his phone buzzed. 

Duke checked the message, and sighed, looking back up at her. “We got another body,” he told her, watching for her reaction. “Does the name Doreen Hanscomb mean anything to you?” 

“Yes,” she sat up straight. “In my Haven she was William’s last experiment. He must have thought that she caused this with her trouble, but he was wrong. Everything’s still the same, so he killed her.” 

Duke shook his head. “I’ve heard enough,” he said heading back for the door. The fact that she so readily admitted to knowing both the victim and why she was killed was definitely a nail in her coffin. He completely ignored her pleas as he walked out and closed the door behind him. He was almost glad that the doctor that had examined Audrey at the hospital was the ME today, and he took the opportunity to get some questions answered about her, not that he got much of course. He did find out that he’d already had Audrey in custody when this woman was killed though. When he got back to the station and found out that they’d let her go, he was livid. Whether she was involved or trying to stop it, she was still the only person that had the information that he needed. When he got to his office to find a list of possible targets, with himself second on the list, he started to think that maybe she was on their side. She could have just walked out and disappeared, but she had left him clues to try and help. 

When Audrey got out of jail, she decided to go try Nathan instead. She’d done what she could to get through to Duke, but even she had to admit that it looked bad. Nathan was the only other person that she had always been able to count on. Finding that his family was missing and that William had took them did exactly what William wanted though. It got her moving on trying to find who was causing this. She couldn’t allow this to happen. They had just managed to track him down and figure out what was going on when Duke came up and skidded to a stop. “Wait here,” she told Nathan and Cliff as she went over to talk to Duke. “Duke…stay out of this,” she said dangerously. 

Duke stalked over to her irritated. “If you think that Hanson needs protection, well let me remind you that /I/ am the cop here.”

“You have no idea what’s going on,” she tried to reason with him. 

“You don’t even know where you are!” Duke snapped incredulously. 

“Look, I am not crazy. William has been killing people to get to that man…” she turned to point and stopped short as she saw Nathan drive off with him. She didn’t see Duke throw up his hands in defeat as she rushed towards them. “Nathan?! What are you doing?” she asked, despite knowing that he couldn’t hear her. She turned back to Duke frantically. “We gotta go. We’re wasting time.” 

“Will you just /stop/ and /listen/!” Duke snapped holding up a hand in emphasis. “Do people put up with this where you’re from?” If the situation hadn’t been so serious she might have smiled at how pure ‘Duke’ that was. “Look…the dead newspaper men, Doreen Hanscomb’s murder, the note carved into her forehead…all of that leads back to one common denominator…and that is /you/.” 

“Okay, I tried to warn you,” she pointed out. 

“Yeah. You did,” Duke snapped. “And I believe you,” he admitted quietly. 

“What?” she asked in shock. 

He ignored the deeper implications behind his admission and focused on something that wouldn’t make him sound as crazy as her. “If this…William…is fixated on you then…maybe we can use that to our advantage,” he told her. “Now, can you tell me…where is Hanson taking him?” 

“To William,” she told him, still reeling over the fact that he trusted her. Even without knowing her and with her sounding completely insane, he still trusted her. He was still Duke and some part of him had to know her. That was the only explanation. It took all of her willpower not to just kiss him senseless right now. 

“Okay,” he said waiting for more. 

“You used Nathan’s cell phone to find us right?” When he nodded, she asked, “You still got a signal?” 

“I sure do,” he nodded with a smirk. 

“Okay, then we can use that to track him. You can fill me in on the case details in the car,” she said quickly. She took half a step towards it before stopping. “Hey…you really believe me?” 

“You were right about the boat,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. “I always did want one.” When they got to where the hostages were being held, the fact that the man they met, this ‘William’ apparently had the same idea that there was another Haven, made him feel a little less crazy for believing her, but before he could even think too much on that, he was being shot. 

Audrey screamed as she watched Duke fall. She started to rush towards him, but was stopped by William, and she couldn’t help but scream at him for it. She couldn’t just stand here and watch Duke die. It didn’t even matter if he wasn’t /her/ Duke. It didn’t matter if none of this was real. It didn’t make it any less real to her and her hope of living in a world without the troubles died too. She wasn’t going to live in a world where Duke wasn’t. She had to get the old Haven back so Duke would be okay. She barely even heard William telling her how she had been the one to make the troubles and was being punished for it, but when she saw Nathan coming back in, she got her head in the game and kept him talking long enough for Nathan to get Duke’s gun and line up a shot, but then William shot Cliff and Audrey suddenly jerked awake in her own bed, next to Duke.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, you okay?” Duke asked, waking up with her. He was usually the first one up so it was weird. Especially when he looked at her and noticed that she was dressed…in clothes that he’d never seen on her before and didn’t think she even owned…but was still in bed. “What happened?” he asked, suspecting a Haven moment. What he was not expecting was for her to all but tackle him back on the bed kissing him desperately as tears fell from her eyes before she started babbling about him being alive and hugging him tightly. “Hey, shh. It’s okay. I’m right here. We’re all fine. It’s okay,” he assured her, running a comforting hand through her hair. Once she was calmer, she pulled back, “What happened?” he asked again. 

“It was…I just…I don’t even know where to begin right this second, but I need to call Nathan and see if he’ll check on something for me and then I’ll try,” she promised. When Duke just nodded, she sat up and grabbed her phone to call Nathan, Duke rubbing circles on her back the whole time she was talking to him. Once she got Nathan’s promise to check on Cliff and Suzie, she hung up and turned back to Duke, unable to resist reaching out to brush her hand down his cheek, needing to reassure herself that he was alive. “Okay, short version for now,” she told him. “The husband of one of the people hurt in the disaster yesterday had a wish trouble. He wished that there were never any troubles in Haven and I woke up in a completely different world. William was there trying to fix it back and killing people trying to find the one causing it. He…he killed you…and I couldn’t stop it. And then he killed the guy causing it and I was back.” 

It said a lot for Duke’s familiarity with this town that he was able to follow and accept that explanation, as he turned it over in his mind. “Okay. Well it’s obviously back to normal now and we’re all okay. I think you could use a strong cup of coffee and maybe some breakfast, yeah? You can give me the long story later.” 

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” she sighed happily, leaning in for a lingering kiss before he got up. 

Duke made coffee first, adding a shot of Bailey’s to both of them, getting a grateful look from her when he handed it to her. She wasn’t usually one for drinking when she knew she would need to work, but one shot wasn’t that big of a deal and he knew that she could really use it right now. Once she was settled at the table with coffee, he made a quick scrambled egg and toast breakfast, glad that he’d made more than necessary when Nathan showed up just as it was finishing, so he dished it out on three plates. 

Nathan gave Duke a nod of thanks before saying, “I talked to the hospital. Suzie died of complications last night. They found Cliff shot dead. William got to him before he could untroubled Haven again…sorry.” 

“William can’t get away with this,” Audrey said harshly as they ate quickly. 

“Well we know he’s somewhere in Haven. Did you find out anything new about him?” Nathan asked her. 

“No…nothing,” she lied, and could tell immediately that Duke knew she was lying, so she shot him a look that she would explain later, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod. “But…detective Crocker,” she pointed at Duke making him choke on his breakfast, “did mention that he found fiberglass on William’s last victim. It was an industrial grade like the kind that you…build…boats…with…” she slowed down as an idea dawned on her and she pulled out her phone to do a search. “Which gets me thinking…”

“Maybe he’s using the same hideout. A boathouse or repair shop,” Nathan suggested. 

“Okay there’s only three in the area,” she told him. 

“Well he wouldn’t want to risk getting caught. Which one’s the furthest from where they found Doreen?” 

“Danny’s dry dock,” she told him. “But there’s no number here.”

“That is because it’s a cover,” Duke jumped in getting looks of expectation from both of them. “Yeah, old man Jessup…he dries out his week harvest there once a year.” When Nathan gave him a pointed look Duke shrugged. “What? It’s not /my/ job to arrest him.”

“Uh-huh,” Nathan resisted the urge to roll his eyes before getting back to the point. “Growing season’s over.”

“That makes it the perfect hideout,” Audrey nodded. 

“Nice work Detective Crocker,” Nathan joked. 

Duke gave him a look. “That hurts me.” 

“Okay, come on guys. Let’s go,” Audrey said getting up and heading for the door. 

“Shotgun,” both Nathan and Duke said as they went after her and Duke was just glad that they had mostly managed to finish breakfast during that conversation. 

They tracked him down easily, and Duke was more than a little taken aback at William’s attitude. He knew that he didn’t have anywhere near the full story from Audrey yet, and the only reason he placed any stock in William’s claims at all was the way Audrey was coming completely undone at hearing them and seemed terrified of him or Nathan or both finding out whatever it was William was hinting at. He knew how it seemed, but was sure that there was a reasonable explanation. He relaxed his grip on the gun waiting for it, but wasn’t about to let his guard down. He needed to prove to Audrey at least that whatever William could tell them wouldn’t make him think any less of her. 

Nathan wasn’t as patient though and had a hair trigger, shooting William before he could say much. When Audrey fell too, Duke was at her side in a second, but Nathan wasn’t far behind. It didn’t take them long to realize that William’s claim that they were connected apparently held some truth and both of them were rushed to the hospital. Duke spent as much of the next couple days as he could at Audrey’s side, but that wasn’t as often as he would have liked. Between backing Nathan up going after a rugaroo and figuring out that the thing was after Jennifer so trying to keep her protected, he was running himself ragged. 

Thankfully, Audrey recovered just in time to help them stop the rugaroo, and from there, Jennifer went to work with Vince and Dave on figuring out what was going on with the weird book while Duke took Audrey home. “Time for the full story now?” he asked as he started cooking dinner. 

“Yeah, okay,” Audrey sighed. She decided to save the big revelation for the end and just go in order. “Well I woke up in here, but the Gull was a bait shop and this was just a storage space, so I didn’t have anything but my pajamas. I didn’t even have any shoes so I had to start walking. You were the first person I ran across,” she smiled. “You saw me walking down the road barefoot and stopped to help me.”

“And I was a cop,” he said in disbelief. 

“Sure were, ‘Detective Crocker’,” she teased playfully, bumping his hip with her own as she grabbed the plates from the cabinet next to the stove. 

“Yeah, no,” Duke shook his head. “The only way that a ‘detective Crocker’ will /ever/ exist is if we get married,” he laughed before realizing what he’d said and changing the subject. “So I found you walking down the road…”

“Yeah. That was when I realized that you didn’t know me at all, but you were still really sweet…”

“One more clue that it was a backwards universe,” Duke joked.

“Oh please,” Audrey rolled her eyes. “You’ve always been sweet to me. But anyway, I kept trying to get you to remember and basically acting crazy so you took me in for a psych eval.” 

“I did?” Duke asked amusedly. 

“Yeah. You did. But you also gave me your number before you left,” she said with a smirk, pulling another laugh from Duke. “And it was better than when you arrested me.”

“Wait…I /arrested/ you?” he asked in shock. When she nodded, his lips twitched at the thought in his head. “You know…that could be kinda fun,” he said suggestively, leaning down for a kiss as he put the food on the table. 

“It was pretty sexy if you ignore how completely panicked I was at the time,” she admitted with a grin. “Maybe one of these days I’ll pull out my handcuffs and /show/ you how it went.” 

“Mmm. I very much look forward to that,” he murmured with a squeeze to her ass before they sat down to eat. He was appreciating the light-hearted banter before it would apparently get worse. 

“But I’m kinda glad you arrested me though because it forced me to tell you the truth,” she said a little more serious. “Before you were all irritated because I kept dodging questions and not telling you everything, but once I had nothing to lose, I explained everything and you…trusted me.”

“I actually believed you?” Duke asked surprised, trying to figure out on what planet someone with no clue about any troubles would believe a crazy person telling them that their entire world was fake. 

“I don’t think so. Not for a while. But once I proved to you that I knew you…you trusted me, even if you didn’t believe me and we worked well together hunting down William, but then he set a trap, waiting until I was right between you to get me in the crossfire and used that to put your gun down. You were trying to talk him down when he just…shot you. Said that you didn’t matter. Nothing in that world did, but that didn’t make it any easier to stand there watching you die.” 

Duke reached over and rubbed her arm comfortingly. “I’m okay, Audrey. I’m right here. Not dead.” 

“I know,” she breathed out relieved. “But then…he started talking to me…” 

When she trailed off worriedly, not meeting Duke’s eyes, he reached over and tilted her chin up. “There is /nothing/ that you could tell me that would make me think less of you,” he said seriously. 

“He said that I…the original me, I mean…that I was the one who created the troubles in the first place. That he and I had done it together because…because we were together. He said that I /liked/ it and that I was being punished for it. That it was why the barn existed and why I kept having to come back and help people. He said…it’s all my fault…everyone that’s died since the troubles first started…it’s all on me,” she sniffled. 

Duke abandoned dinner for a minute and went over to crouch next to her chair and pull her into a hug, running a comforting hand through her hair. “No, Audrey. /You/ didn’t. Maybe your original personality did…if he was even telling the truth…but Audrey Parker? She doesn’t have that kind of cruelty in her.” 

“But if that’s who I really am…underneath the shells I wear…underneath whatever rewrites my personality…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Duke said, leaning back to look at her with his hands on her cheeks. “You choose your own destiny, Audrey. You choose who you are and what you do with your life. It doesn’t matter how you became you. It just matters that you did.” 

Audrey let out a shaky breath and nodded, kissing him lovingly before they got back to their dinner. “Thank you.” 

“That’s what you were afraid to tell me? And Nathan?” 

“Yeah. I just…you’ve both suffered so much because of the troubles…the whole town has. I can’t imagine what people would think if they knew…”

“People are idiots,” Duke told her. “And yeah, we definitely should keep this information under wraps, but me and Nathan…we /know/ you. We believe in you. You can always tell us anything.”

“Okay,” she breathed out. “Y-you’ll help me tell him?” 

“Absolutely,” Duke promised. “But it’s been a long few days. It’ll keep until tomorrow.” 

The next morning though, it seemed that it was time for another emergency. While Duke was checking in with Jennifer and the Teagues to help find a way to handle William, Nathan and Audrey tried to track down the trouble that was killing people. It turned out that William had activated a baby’s curse that would kill people whenever the baby cried. When Audrey figured out why she was horrified. There was no way she was going to go around giving people troubles and the very idea that he was trying to bring out her original personality and get rid of Audrey Parker for good was chilling. She couldn’t let that happen. 

When she realized there wasn’t another way, the only thing she could think of was to call Duke. She knew that if anyone could find another way out of this mess it was him. He was the best person she knew at thinking outside the box. Once she explained everything, he just looked blankly at her. “So you called me down here to grant you permission to give someone a trouble?” When she didn’t answer he knew he was right. “Audrey, you can /never/ do that. No matter what happens,” he said fearfully. The idea of losing her…of having to watch her become something evil…he couldn’t take it. “He is trying to get you to…shove that needle back into your vein. There’s no recovering from that.” 

“You don’t trust me to hold onto who I am?” she asked hurt. 

“I don’t trust the troubles,” Duke wanted to make that part perfectly clear. “They’re deep. And dark. And they take the people you love away.” He’d seen far too much. Too many people lose themselves in it. Like Wade had. Like countless others. 

“No one’s taking Audrey away,” Nathan said as he walked in the door. “Do it,” he told her. “Trouble whoever you need to, to make this stop. I know you’re strong enough. You’re not gonna turn into whoever William wants you to.”

Duke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He got up and met her eyes. “I believe in you, Audrey,” he said earnestly. “But if you turn back into some female version of William…if that happens…forget the troubles…forget babies that kill people, we are screwed on a whole other level.” Not to mention that going this route risked people finding out that she had created the troubles in the first place. She would be lynched by the small minded idiots filling this town who would let their hysteria cloud the fact that she was a completely different person now. 

“Okay,” Audrey said shakily, coming to a decision. “I need to go talk to William.” 

“Audrey, wait. What are you going to do?” Duke called as she headed for the door. 

“The right thing,” she said cryptically before leaving. She knew that Duke was right. That troubles weren’t rational. That no matter how hard she tried to hold onto herself there were no guarantees. Presumably her original self hadn’t been so willing to give up everything she was to make way for the personalities that followed either. There was only one thing she could do, but she wasn’t going to do it without at least trying to get William to undo what he’d done first. If not, maybe he would at least let on what his next steps would be. 

William thought she was bluffing when she told him that she would kill the baby, but once he told her what he would do if she did, she realized that there really wasn’t a choice. She had to create a trouble. There was no other way around it. Once she got the instructions, she headed back to Nathan and Duke. She just hoped that Duke would understand. She couldn’t stand the idea of doing this behind his back and maybe with their help she could mitigate any unnecessary damage. Help clarify the intention and find the right person. 

Once she had explained, Duke shook his head. “Intention. Person. Evil black goo. You know, jacking up someone’s life shouldn’t be this simple.” 

“But it’s not that simple. Aaron’s gonna wake up an cry at any minute and I’ve got come up with some kind of silence trouble. What does that mean, okay? What is my intention?” she needed to get them brainstorming. 

“The DOA at the warehouse, right before he died, he said he /heard/ a baby cry, but that’s…five miles away,” Nathan pointed out. 

“Well, so the sound travels supernaturally. It’s still just sound. So…you wanna give somebody, what? A bubble of silence curse and then stick the baby inside of it so the…the evil sound never leaves it’s throat?” Duke scoffed. 

“Troubled version of cutting it’s vocal cords,” Nathan shrugged. 

“And a lot less cruel,” Audrey added. 

“Yeah, wasn’t really suggesting that,” Duke interjected despite realizing that they weren’t even listening to him right now. 

“Okay, but who do I trouble? Help me think,” she asked them. “Troubles are always related to the people that have them.”

“Right. Jack Driscoll was a deep sea diver he developed a crazy pressure trouble,” Nathan considered. When he noticed Duke thinking of something he apparently found almost amusing he asked, “What?” 

“Well you weren’t exactly the most emotionally expressive kid in school…now you’re numb,” Duke pointed out. 

“You’re a sponge,” Nathan shot back offended. 

“Wasn’t derogatory,” Duke rolled his eyes. “I was…”

“Okay so who can best manifest this bubble of silence,” Audrey interrupted before an argument could start. 

“Maybe someone who’s mute?” Nathan suggested. 

“Yeah…or someone who can barely hear,” Audrey thought, noticing the old man trimming the hedges. Getting the old man to agree to carry the curse to save the baby’s life was easier than she had expected, but unfortunately it backfired and did the opposite of what they wanted. 

Duke followed after Audrey once they got Lincoln settled and saw William hand her the box, presumably with more of the evil black goo inside, and he knew how this worked. He’d seen addictions take people and this was even worse. The deeper she got the harder it would be to back out. “Give me the box,” he said sternly. 

“I have to keep trying,” she protested. 

“You know, I’m fine if you want to lie to that scumbag, but you’re not gonna lie to me,” Duke said, trying to keep his voice even. 

“Lie about what?” Audrey asked confused. 

“You felt her,” Duke said bluntly. “You felt your original self…and you liked it.” Duke would be the last person to judge anyone for having a dark side, but that didn’t mean he could let her fall to it. 

Audrey knew that if there was anyone she could talk to about this it was Duke. It didn’t even matter how against this he was. Maybe if he knew that she could fight it, he would feel better. If he knew that she wasn’t taking it lightly. “It was terrifying,” she admitted. “It was like the worst jolt of just…evil…when I touched him. And I think that some deep part of me liked it.” 

“This is why you can’t do this,” Duke tried to reason with her. “The temptation is too much.” He knew temptation all too well. He’d fought his own for so long with his own curse and it had nearly torn him apart. This had to be so much worse. “He will get you back. You won’t be Audrey Parker anymore, and you won’t care. But I do care. I love you, and I’m not gonna let you do this.” 

“How do I justify what I did to Lincoln? I can’t just…give up,” she said desperately. 

“We’ll stick him in a soundproof room. We’ll…something. We will find another way,” Duke vowed. 

“Alright but I am not gonna hurt that baby,” Audrey said firmly. Even if she did, William would still have his revenge and it would be even worse. 

“No. You’re not,” Ben said as he walked over with the baby. He looked straight at Duke and said, “You’re gonna hurt me. I know about the Crocker curse. Kill me.” 

“Okay, Ben that’s really noble of you, but…” 

Duke interrupted Audrey with a quiet, “yeah,” and she stopped and looked at him incredulously. Duke ignored her for the moment and looked seriously at Ben. “You sure about that?” 

“Sure I want to leave my son without any parents? No. But I don’t know another way,” Ben replied. “I’m sure she didn’t tell you, but Gloria considered the Crocker family curse a great blessing.”

Duke shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around that as he asked, “Why?” 

“It cured her family of the trouble,” Ben told him. “One of your ancestors killed one of hers.” He took a deep breath and looked resolutely at Duke. “I want to take this trouble to the grave.”

Duke swallowed heavily, cutting his eyes to Audrey as he said, “Alright.” He could save the baby and hopefully save Audrey in the process. “Take the baby up to the house. We’ll meet you there.” 

Audrey managed to wait until they were alone before she rounded on Duke. “Are you crazy? You just told me that I shouldn’t trouble anyone else and now you want me to retrouble you, give you back the Crocker family curse so that you can kill that baby’s father?! No, we’ve been down that road before.” 

“Hey, I don’t like it either,” Duke snapped. “But he is volunteering, and…and so am I,” he finished quietly, hoping that his voice didn’t betray his fear. “You can’t go on troubling person after person until you get it right. Body counts just keep climbing. You /know/ me. You know my curse. And just…one more hand slap and we’re done.” She clearly wasn’t going to give this up and the fewer people she troubled the easier it would be for her to hold onto herself. The less chance he had of losing her to the darkness within. “I mean, it’s…it’s that or kill the baby.” 

Before Audrey could come up with another argument, Jennifer came up to find them, so she went to talk to Gloria and Ben about it. If she could get Ben to /un/volunteer, it would just make it that much harder for Duke to go through with it. She would be able to talk him out of it. Troubling other people would be bad enough. Doing it to the man she loved would tear her apart. 

When Jennifer found out what they were planning, she was upset. “We are so close to getting that door. If we find the right four people, we can put William away and life becomes manageable,” she tried to talk him out of it. 

“That’s still the plan, okay?” Duke assured her, but that wouldn’t help this baby. “I have to get back up there and do this,” he said impatiently. 

“No, you have to explain this to me,” she snapped. He was her friend. Her best friend even. She couldn’t just let him do this and she couldn’t believe that Audrey was letting him either. “Look, I understand that people are dying and there’s the baby, but why do /you/ have to be the hero this time?”

“Because I’m not a wildcard like Gloria’s boyfriend,” he sighed. “The Crocker you see is the Crocker you get.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Jennifer said worriedly. “The Crocker curse…you really want to go through all of that again?” 

“I don’t…/want/ to. I /have/ to,” he told her. Why couldn’t she just understand that? He didn’t have a choice here any more than any of them ever had a choice in all this. “I am gonna be fine. And just as annoying as when you first met me,” he tried to lighten the mood. 

“This isn’t funny, Duke,” she snapped irritated. “None of this is funny. This is horrible and I’m horrible for feeling this way but I don’t care.” 

“Jennifer stop,” he said gently. “It’s all going to be okay,” he assured her. 

“No. It won’t. We were supposed to be putting all this behind us. William. The stupid door. Everything. It’s supposed to be over.”

“And it will be…” he reached his hands to her shoulders but she just pushed him away and stormed off. “Jennifer…” he tried to call after her, but she just ignored him so he sighed and headed back up to the house. 

“Are we doing this?” Audrey asked nervously from the front stoop as Nathan, Gloria, Ben, and the baby gathered there. She hated it, but Ben had managed to convince her that it was the only way. Still, if Duke changed his mind, there wasn’t a force in this world that would make her hurt him like this. 

“Yeah we’re going this,” Duke said with forced calm as he unbuttoned a few extra buttons on his shirt as she crunched the ball in her hand. He held her eyes and gave her a slight encouraging smile as she reached for his chest. He could see the second that her old self shone in her eyes and forced back his fear long enough to do something about it. At least he hoped so. He put his hand over hers and rubbed his thumb over her fingers that were splayed on his chest. “Audrey,” he called gently, lacing his voice with as much love as he could manage. 

“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly as she snatched her hand away. “You?” she asked Duke worriedly. 

“Something happened that’s for sure,” he said carefully as he searched her eyes for any sign that she wasn’t quite herself. “I need to…take a bit…assuming we have time.”

“Yeah, the baby should sleep for a while longer,” Audrey assured him. “You’ll be okay?” 

“Fine,” he nodded turning to head inside to find someplace to think. And to watch. See how she acted when he wasn’t watching her so carefully. He had to be certain. He went upstairs and found a window and he was staring out it hauntedly when Nathan found him. 

“How you doing?” Nathan asked gently. 

“Seriously?” Duke scoffed. 

“I mean, do you feel okay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Duke told him, really getting sick of that question, but at least it was coming from a good place. He pulled his knife from his pocket and opened it, handing it to Nathan who looked at him confused. “Here. Look, if I’m gonna kill this guy, I better be damn well sure that it’s gonna work. I have to test myself.” 

Nathan nodded gravely, completely understanding that now that Duke explained. As much as it would break Duke to kill an innocent person and orphan a baby, doing it for nothing would be a thousand times worse. He cut his finger open, and smeared the blood in Duke’s palm, breathing easily when it absorbed into the skin. The fact that everyone was calm right now kept him from backing away as he usually did when Duke’s curse activated. He knew that Duke was able to fight the bloodlust just fine as long as he was calm and no one made any threatening moves. “It worked,” he breathed out, glancing up at Duke’s glowing silver eyes. 

“Just like riding a bike for us Crockers,” Duke said, voice laced with disgust. 

“Hey…you’re not like Wade,” Nathan said sincerely. 

“I’m not worried about turning into my brother, Nathan,” Duke said. “Look…when Audrey touched me, there was something about her. Something different.” He had to share this with /someone/ and Nathan was the only one it was safe to do so with. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I just think we should keep an eye on her,” Duke said cryptically. Hopefully he was just being paranoid and she had fought it off for good, but just in case…more eyes would be better. “Just…just to be safe.” 

Nathan nodded gravely, realizing what he was getting at and had to reassure him. “You know, as soon as we get rid of William, Audrey’s gonna be fine.” 

While Audrey watched the family say goodbye, she was frantically searching through the information she’d managed to glean from Mara. As much as poking around that wall scared the hell out of her, she had caught enough of a fragment to know that it was important that she do so. She was onto something big. It wasn’t until Ben was already inside that it dawned on her and she rushed inside. “Wait,” she called just as Duke pointed the gun at him. “We don’t have to do this.”

Duke stopped and lowered the gun halfway, desperately hoping that she had found another way even as Ben said desperately, “Yes, we do. We’ve already been through this.”

“There’s another way,” Audrey said breathlessly as Gloria gasped from the doorway where she’d followed. 

“Thank god,” Duke breathed out, putting his gun back in his belt. “What do we do?” 

“I can remove the trouble from Aaron,” she told him.


	5. Chapter 5

“What? How?” Ben asked hopefully and more than a little disbelievingly. 

“That’s possible?” Duke asked skeptically. 

“Yeah. I don’t know if it’ll remove it from the whole family though, but at least the baby will be free.” 

“Give us a minute?” Duke asked Ben who nodded and headed out. “What is this, Audrey?” Duke asked worriedly once they were alone. 

“When I was giving you your trouble…my old self…Mara…she surfaced…just for a minute. She tried to twist your trouble somehow, but I stopped her. At least I think I did. When you brought me back. But while she was there…I caught thoughts from her. Ideas. I’m still trying to sort it all out and I didn’t get much, but you, your curse, and the troubles in general were on her mind. I know how to remove them.” 

Duke felt better that she was at least admitting it without prompting, but he still wasn’t completely comfortable with this idea. “And how do you know that doing that won’t give her more of a foothold?” 

“Because I know how they work now. I know how /she/ works,” Audrey smirked. 

“Tell me,” Duke prompted. 

“The troubles…they’re rooted in hatred. That’s why the one in Lincoln went bad. I was missing that key component.” 

“But the one you gave me worked,” Duke pointed out.

“Because she helped. She…drove…so to speak. I just steered,” Audrey tried to tell him. “But my point is…the troubles are like pure concentrated hate. They can be fought with love. That’s how you helped me keep as much control of her as I did. How you helped me fight her back down. And how I will be able to cure that baby. I don’t need to /give/ people troubles. I just need to channel enough love to cancel them out.” 

Duke broke out in a smile and pulled her into a long kiss before saying, “Well if there’s one thing Audrey Parker has more than enough of, it’s love. Let’s go do this. Before something else pisses the kid off.”

Audrey laughed and nodded, heading back out the door and pulling another black ball from the box. “Are you sure this is going to work?” Ben asked before letting her near the baby. 

“Not a hundred percent, no,” Audrey shook her head. 

“And how is this any different than what you did with Lincoln?” Gloria asked fearfully. 

“Because now I have a better idea what I’m doing. I know where I went wrong, and how to fix it. Please…trust me,” she told them gently. 

“Maybe you should test it on other people first,” Gloria suggested. 

“I only have a few more of these balls,” Audrey explained. “I don’t know if it will work on the whole family or not when I take it from him, but we’ll need to test it. We’ll need Ben to still have the curse when I take it from him.”

“Test it on Lincoln first then,” Nathan suggested. “He can’t live his life the way he is anyway, so if something goes wrong…” 

“Okay,” Audrey agreed. “We can do that.” She had planned on helping Lincoln too, so this just changed the order a bit and it probably was smart to test it before experimenting on a baby. “I’ll need Duke with me.”

Duke just nodded and took her hand, leading her, followed by Gloria, to the room where they’d put Lincoln where things were as quiet as possible. Even then though, Lincoln was still curled in a ball on the floor with his hands over his ears and the rest of them winced at the amplified distorted sounds even as minor as they were. Just their own heartbeats were echoing through the room. Audrey didn’t dare try to talk to him at all to get his agreement with this. Gloria’s nod when she looked her way was the only permission she could get. She crushed the ball in the hand that wasn’t holding Duke’s and took a deep breath, looking her boyfriend deep in his eyes and letting her love for him fill her up before slapping the hand to Lincolns arm, taking care to cover her previous handprint as closely as possible to help her pull out the same way it went in. 

When she stumbled backwards, Duke caught her before she could fall, asking with his eyes if she was okay, not daring to speak. It was about half a second before the sound in the room started to dim and then stop as Lincoln uncurled from his ball. “What happened?” he asked confusedly. 

“It worked,” Gloria said with a gasp as her hands covered her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. She fell to her knees in front of Lincoln and started explaining as much as she could loudly enough for him to hear. 

“Are you okay?” Duke took the opportunity to ask Audrey now that it was safe. 

“Yeah. I’m okay,” she breathed out. “Just took a lot out of me.” 

“You’ll still be able to help Aaron though right?” Gloria asked, having picked up on their conversation through her own. 

“Absolutely,” Audrey assured her. Even if she wasn’t up to it, she couldn’t not do it. Even if it killed her. 

Duke thought she was pushing it, doing another one after how hard that was, but he knew that there would be no talking her out of it. He also knew that there wasn’t a choice. Who knew how long it would take her to get back to a hundred percent? That baby could start crying any second now. All he could do now was support her as much as possible and hope for the best. She leaned on him as they four of them headed back outside where Ben, Nathan, and the baby were waiting. 

“It worked?” Nathan asked incredulously when he saw Lincoln. He hadn’t actually expected it to.

“Okay, do you need anything for Aaron?” Ben asked, finally believing that this could be real. 

“I need you to take his shirt off and hold him up so I can see his back,” Audrey told him. She needed to use the original handprint if at all possible. This time Duke was able to position himself in front of her and took her face in his hands, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs as her hand pressed to the baby’s back. He, once again, had to catch her before she fell, but this time she didn’t take her weight back at all, so he gently lowered her to sit on the ground, leaning against the column. “I’m okay,” she said breathlessly. “Check Ben?” 

Duke gave Nathan a look and Nathan moved over and crouched next to Audrey in case she needed some support while Duke got up and went over to Ben, handing him the same knife that he had Nathan earlier. “I just need a few drops of your blood on my skin.” 

Ben nodded and put a cut on his palm, clenching his fist over Duke’s open palm and letting the blood fall. Duke didn’t take his eyes off the blood that pooled there and Ben asked, “Is something supposed to be happening?” 

Duke looked up at him with an encouraging smile. “If you were still troubled, the blood would have been absorbed into my skin and my eyes would have changed to silver. You’re cured now. Which means the baby is too.”

Gloria squealed happily and hugged Ben tightly with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she told Duke before looking at Audrey. “Thank you both. I can never repay either of you. Just…thank you.” 

Audrey grinned and nodded at her before looking at Duke. “Give me a few minutes to rest and I’ll take care of you too.”

“No,” Duke shook his head. “Dwight was right before. As shitty as the Crocker curse is, it’s necessary to help keep the troubles in line. I need to keep it.” That was only a small part of the reason. He didn’t want her to push herself too far. He could live with it. At least for a while longer. “You can get Nathan after you rest though.”

“I can try,” Audrey said with a regretful look at Nathan. “I can’t promise it will work though. With Lincoln and Aaron, I pulled it from the original channel that it was created with, but since you inherited yours…”

“I don’t have an original channel,” Nathan finished understanding. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if you can do it, there are a lot of other people who need it more than me and we don’t have an unlimited amount of the black stuff. Mine is livable at least.” 

Audrey couldn’t argue with that so she just nodded. “Maybe I can get William to give up his hiding place to find more,” she suggested. “If I can convince him that I’m starting to remember Mara and want to know more…” 

“No. It’s too risky,” Duke shook his head. 

“I agree with Duke. For the most part. “We need to get William to open the door at least though. If Audrey can distract him long enough for us to tranq him…and if she can get the location out of him in the process, great, but we can’t hesitate if we get a shot,” Nathan said, getting a reluctant nod from Duke. 

When Duke’s phone buzzed, he pulled it out and checked the message. “Talk about timing,” Duke rolled his eyes. “They found the fourth person we need. Now we just need to get us and William there.” 

“Then let’s go. I think I know where he is,” Audrey said, glad that she had enough strength now to stand. 

Duke drove her and Nathan nearby, and she sat in silence for most of the way before Duke asked, “You okay, Audrey?”

“Yeah. Just trying to process this information I got from Mara,” she explained. Even if it wasn’t so important, the more ammunition she had against William, the better. 

“But you’re still…you know…you? She’s not…trying to get through?” he asked worriedly, not sure if poking at that door was the best idea, even if it had saved them once already. 

“She’s trying, but what I did weakened her a lot more than it did me. I’m fine,” she assured them. 

“If that changes, Parker…” Nathan said warningly.

“I’ll back off,” she promised. 

“And let us know so we can help you fight back,” Duke said pointedly, getting a nod from her. After that they let her sit in silence for the rest of the trip. 

Once they got there, both Duke and Nathan grabbed the tranquilizer guns that they’d stopped to pick up and took off into the woods. Audrey took a dart of her own to put in her pocket just in case. Unfortunately, it didn’t go according to plan and Nathan and Duke were both caught. On the plus side, she had a whole stash of what she now knew was called Aether and William had coached her into controlling it, and the goons that had Duke and Nathan cuffed. Once they were gone, she was free to handle William. He was so convinced that Mara was coming back that she was able to get close enough to stick it in his neck. She expected that it would knock her out too, but she was fine as he hit the ground. 

Audrey rushed to Duke first to undo his cuffs and by the time she got to Nathan he was already free, having dislocated his thumbs to slip the cuffs off. “How are you still awake?” Nathan asked her confused. 

“I don’t know, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Come on. We need to go meet the others at the lighthouse,” Audrey said as Duke picked up William and threw him over his shoulder and they headed back to the truck. 

William woke up on the way there, but he was securely tied up by now, and they got there to find Dave having a full meltdown as he tried to shoot Vince, but thanks to Dwight standing right behind him, the bullet went through his own shoulder. “Get him on the figure,” Nathan ordered. 

“Wait,” Audrey called. “Hang on a second. What do you know Dave? Why are you so scared?” 

“He knows what’s on the other side of that door,” William said smugly. “He knows what’s going to come out as soon as it’s opened.” 

“Is that true, Dave?” Audrey asked gently. “Are you sure there’s something dangerous there?” 

“Would I have tried to shoot my own brother if I wasn’t sure?!” Dave asked hysterically. 

“Okay, then. We’re not doing this,” Audrey said in a tone that brooked no argument. Not that anyone didn’t try. 

“This is the only way we can get rid of William,” Nathan tried to reason. 

“No. It isn’t,” Audrey said, having been forming a theory based on Mara’s memories, things that William and Howard had said to her, and her own observations. It was just a theory though so she had to tell Duke one last time, “I love you, Duke. Always remember that.” 

“Audrey…” he said holding out his hands placatingly trying to talk her down. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing…” That was as far as he got before Audrey drew her gun faster than any of them could stop and put a bullet between William’s eyes. “No!” Duke cried, catching her as she fell. “No, no, no.” 

There were a series of gasps, everyone there being in on the secret of Audrey and William being connected. As Duke cradled Audrey’s body in his arms, Nathan was frozen. As the only one, other than Duke who wasn’t in the position to notice much of anything right now, who had seen the effect before, he realized that something wasn’t right. Due to his shock it even took him a minute to realize that he could feel again, but Audrey was more important right now. “Duke, wait…look at William,” Nathan said seriously, as Jennifer cried in Vince’s arms and Dwight was helping Dave with his bullet wound. 

“Why?” Duke asked hoarsely, doing as Nathan asked. 

“Now look at Audrey,” he said. 

“There’s no wound,” Duke breathed out as he realized and his hand automatically went to her neck. “There’s a pulse. She’s alive.” 

“How is that possible?” Vince asked, both overjoyed and confused. 

“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “But I have to believe that she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t at least suspect that she would survive it. Maybe when she waked up she’ll be able to tell us.” 

“Can you feel again?” Audrey asked with a groan as she woke up, having caught the last part of the conversation. 

“Yeah. I can. The question is how,” Nathan asked her. 

“You’re okay,” Duke gasped, not really giving a shit about Nathan feeling right this minute as he pressed a desperate kiss to her lips. “And…you’re still Audrey right?” he thought to ask after. 

“Yeah, Duke. It’s me. Mara is gone for good,” she smiled, reaching a hand to his cheek. 

“I think we all need to sit down and get some explanations, but I don’t think it should be here. If nothing else, Dave needs medical attention,” Dwight spoke up. 

Audrey nodded as Duke and Nathan helped her to her feet. “You’re right. Vince, you should check with the guard. All the troubles should be over now, for good. Go take care of Dave and I’ll explain tomorrow. Tonight, I just need Duke.” They all had a million questions, but reluctantly accepted that. They had information to confirm and damage control to do. Tomorrow would be soon enough for explanations. Once they were in Duke’s truck, Audrey said, “Can the questions wait until we get home? I’d rather have your full focus.” 

“Okay. Fair enough,” Duke nodded. He would prefer to be able to focus completely on what she was saying too and the time to get himself together after that scare would be helpful. 

Once they were back in Audrey’s apartment, Duke sat on the couch and pulled her into his lap, not wanting to let her go far right now. “Okay, now start with why you would do that? Did you really know you would survive? How?” 

“I suspected I would,” Audrey told him. “But I wasn’t positive.” 

“But you risked it anyway? And how are the troubles gone? I thought you had to kill the person you loved the most for that?” Duke asked, questions coming too fast to his mind. 

“See that’s what I thought too, but then I got to thinking. The punishment was devised for /Mara/. Not Audrey. And the person that /Mara/ loved the most was William. The fact that they were connected was complicated, but when I stayed awake when I tranqued William, it made me realize that we may not be protected from each other.” 

“So because you were the one who killed him, you were protected from the effect?” Duke tried to follow. 

“Exactly,” Audrey said. “And since the connection was between him and Mara…she died with him. Which is why I blacked out.” 

“But if she was your original self…you could have died too,” Duke pointed out. 

“Hence the risk,” Audrey shrugged. “It was worth it though. I don’t know what was on the other side of that door, but whatever it was had Dave completely freaked, and I could feel that even Mara was afraid of it. I knew we couldn’t risk opening that door. But we also couldn’t risk William running free. It was the only chance.” 

“Still…”

“It all worked out, Duke,” she said softly brushing her hand down his cheek and leaning her forehead against his. “I’m here. I’m fine. And Mara is gone forever. So is William. So are the troubles. Everything is perfect.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Duke breathed her in, tilting his head for a soft kiss. “Okay,” he settled himself. “And you’re sure the troubles can’t come back? I mean…what if someone else gets their hands on that black stuff?” 

“They won’t be able to use it,” she shook her head. “The only reason Mara and I could is because we were from another world. The Aether…which is what it was called…was a part of us. When Mara linked herself to William, who was originally from this world, it gave him the ability to use it too.” 

“She linked himself to him? How?” Duke asked. 

“Some kind of ceremony. I saw it and how it was done, but she wasn’t thinking about how it actually worked, so I don’t know. It made him immortal with her and gave him a link to the Aether through her.” 

“So…you’re immortal?” Duke asked. “And you could do this linking thing too?” 

“I’m not positive, but I think so. On both counts,” she told him. 

Duke nodded, filing that information away for later. Much later. They were in no way ready for any kind of permanent bonding thing, but maybe someday. “So Jennifer and Dave…they’re from that world too, right? Would they be able to use the…Aether you called it?” 

“Aether yeah, and no they can’t use it,” she shook her head. “I’m thinking, from what I could glean, that they’re what Mara called halflings. Part human, part whatever they are. They don’t have the same kind of connection and they’re not immortal, obviously. Otherwise Dave would have stopped aging a long time ago like I did.” 

“Okay, that’s good. So as of right now, you’re the only one that can use this stuff, right?” Duke wanted to confirm. 

“As far as I know. I mean, there’s a chance that there are others from that world, but I highly doubt it.” 

“Okay, well I think we need to get rid of it. Just to keep the temptation away from you. Not that I think that you would ever create more troubles, but whose to say that’s the only thing it could do? It’s too dangerous to be messing with.”

“I don’t think I would ever be that reckless, but since there’s no point in keeping it when I have no intention of using it, we might as well. How are we going to get rid of it though?” 

“I don’t know. Toss it in a volcano?” Duke shrugged. 

“That’s probably not the best idea. The Aether is an extremely powerful substance. For all I know throwing it in a volcano could make it explode the entire planet.” 

“Okay, then at the bottom of the ocean,” Duke suggested. 

“We would need to completely seal it,” she considered the matter. “I don’t know what kind of contamination it could cause if it leaked out.” 

“Okay. I could get some titanium…it’ll hold up under a hundred miles of water…I’ll build a box…no a few boxes. One inside another. I’ll weld them all up tight with the Aether in the middle. Then we can go out and drop it far enough and deep enough that it won’t be found by any treasure divers.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Audrey nodded. 

“It’ll take a couple weeks to get the materials and get it built and double check the seals,” Duke told her and she nodded. “Any other major bombshells you want to drop on me tonight?” 

“Nope. Nothing that’s relevant anymore with the troubles gone,” she told him, not sure if she should tell him the truth about the Crocker curse or not, but deciding that it didn’t matter. 

“Okay. Then let’s go to bed,” he said relieved. 

The next few weeks flew by. Audrey was back to work and aside from a few growing pains as the town settled into trouble free life, there wasn’t much left to do. Crime was almost non-existent. It almost reminded her of the fake Haven that she’d gotten stuck in where vandalism was the worst issue they faced. Nathan was back as the chief while Dwight stepped down, having never been completely comfortable in the job. Jennifer had packed up and gone back to Boston, wanting to get back to her old life now that she knew that she wasn’t crazy. She still kept in touch though. Audrey had explained the pertinent information to Vince and Dave, the former of which passed it along to the troubled who were wondering why they were free now. For the first time since she’d got back from the barn, Audrey actually had time to think and that wasn’t really a good thing. 

Duke welded the Aether inside the first box and built five more layers around that so that the titanium was over a foot thick. He also staggered the welding around in each layer so that there weren’t any spots that were weak all the way through to avoid any cracks. He was almost finished when he noticed that something was bothering Audrey, who had been staying on the Rouge most nights since she was actually free to now, not pretending to be Lexi anymore. “What’s wrong?” he asked her over dinner one night. 

Audrey sighed. She should have known that she wouldn’t be able to hide from him for very long. “I just…don’t know who I am anymore.” 

“How so?” Duke asked, wondering if this was about Mara. 

“I have all the memories and experiences of Audrey Parker, yeah, but I also have the same for Lexi DeWitt. Sometimes I just don’t know if I’m a detective or a bartender or both or what parts of which one of them I am, and it’s just…now that we’re not going from one crisis to the next all the time…”

“You have a chance to focus on it and it’s driving you nuts,” Duke nodded understandingly. “How about this? I’ll teach you how to meditate and you can come with me when I go out to drop this box. You can take the time to focus on figuring yourself out without distractions. Being out to sea is good for that.”

“What if…” Audrey trailed off, biting her lip. 

“What if what?” Duke prompted. 

“What if I’m not enough of myself anymore. If…I’m too different from Audrey for you to…”

“Hey,” Duke said seriously reaching over and taking her hand. “That won’t happen. No matter what comes of your soul-searching, you can’t erase Audrey Parker any more than you can erase Lexi DeWitt. You’ll always be you at the core…”

“But Mara wasn’t,” Audrey pointed out. 

“Mara is gone. And you didn’t have her memories and experiences the way you do with Lexi and Audrey. That’s the difference,” Duke told her. “Unless you have more of her than you mentioned…”

“No,” Audrey shook her head. “I mean, I got a bit of information and some flashes of memory, but not the full memories or emotions or anything. It’s almost like when I was getting flashes of Lucy. I don’t feel like she’s me at all. Not like Lexi.” 

“Okay, then we’re all good,” Duke shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I love you, and that’s not going to change. You find the best you you can be. And if when we get back you want to try out being a bartender, well…I do own a bar. It’s not like I wouldn’t hire you if you wanted a job,” he chuckled. “Or if you want to do something completely different, I’d support you in any way I could. Never doubt that.”

Audrey sighed happily and leaned her head on his shoulder before joking, “Even if I wanted to move to the Midwest, far away from the ocean.” 

“Well…” Duke pretended to consider. “I’d come visit?” Only the fact that he knew she was joking kept him from worrying about it too much. He desperately hoped that he wouldn’t end up having to choose between her and the sea. Either choice would destroy a piece of him. 

“Don’t worry,” she laughed. “I would never try to take you away from the water. I know better.” 

“Good,” he sighed with relief. “So you’ll come with me when I finish the box? It should only be a couple more days.”

“Yeah. I’ll come with. Assuming I can get the time off. It shouldn’t be a problem though. There isn’t much going on and Nathan wants that Aether gone as much as any of us and we both know that he’d trust me to oversee it more than you,” she chuckled. 

“Fair point,” Duke said amusedly. He and Nathan had come a long way, but there still wasn’t the same unconditional trust that either of them gave Audrey. 

By the time they got back, Audrey had decided to explore a little more of Lexi for a while, but not give up Audrey either. After a long conversation with Nathan, they settled on a solution. She would quit being a detective and would mainly be a bartender at the Gull, but she would still be on the books as a consultant and help out with any difficult cases. Duke joked that since she would be sleeping with her new boss, getting time off to consult would be a piece of cake. 

The searching herself process took considerably longer than one boat trip but eventually she settled into a good mix of her two personalities, finding that much easier than going back and forth between them, being Lexi in public and Audrey in private. True to Duke’s word, he loved her just as much in any combination and they were married two years later. Ten years after the troubles ended, Duke brought up the idea of linking them together so they could have forever. He was over forty by that point and if he waited too much longer, age would start to catch up with him in a way that he wouldn’t want to live with for the rest of eternity. Audrey easily agreed. Losing Duke to old age had been a recurring nightmare of hers since she first learned that she was immortal and if he was ready for that kind of commitment then so was she. Not that it didn’t have it’s downsides, of course. Every time he ended up getting into a fight or bruising his knuckles while working on the boat or anything else, she got the same injuries, just as he did whenever she got hurt. They both thought it was worth it though.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that in canon, the deal is that if she kills the person she loves that all troubled people die instead of are cured, but I'm disregarding that idea for this story. It's going to work just how they originally thought, even without the barn.


End file.
